Shakespeare is very forgiving. You can set Romeo and Juliet among lizards on Venus, if you like - you can even set Macbeth in mediaeval Scotland, as here. There is only one absolute - that the words comes first. That means that you can hear the words: that they are spoken with understanding of their meaning and their music; and that the acting supports that meaning.

This Macbeth largely fails that test, and failing that, fails the only purpose one can have in staging Shakespeare. The words are mostly spoken in a sort of mumbling through clenched teeth, in a kind of emotionally flat delivery, that effectively kills their effect. And they have to compete not only with huge scenery and constant hyper-violence, but with constant intrusive mood music, a kind of sustained drone intended to convey dread etc. Not only that, but extra loud thumps, splats and splurges during the killing, which is most of the time. Well, if you need hyper-violence and mood music to do what you want, forget the poor bloody text, which obviously you don't think is up to much, and let's have a battle to the death between dinosaurs on Mars.

A painfully irrelevant (and expensively staged) alternative to Shakespeare's directions of Birnam wood coming to Dunsinane (burn 'em, geddit?) merely confirms that the director found old Will a bit dull. He couldn't fit in a car chase but this was the next best thing.

A truly dreadful production.

Marion Cotillard is spellbinding, and Michael Fassbender powers through when Macbeth's demons take over, but the credit has to go the excellent camera work and cinematography. In my humble opinion, it's ground breakingly awesome and definitely aimed at enticing a younger audience. Overall the film is so dark and evil you need to shake yourself at the end to rekindle the spirit. A wonderfully stark representation and really worth watching; one that the Game of Thrones fans should love.