Macbeth

The words belong to Mr. Shakespeare. All else in this Macbeth is the pleasurably fevered invention of brash Australian director Geoffrey Wright.

Thoughtful, sexually charged, and sometimes brutal, this Australian drama by director Geoffrey Wright updates the setting of Shakespeare's play but stays true to its themes, offering fresh insight into the characters and verse.

Although the film is entertaining, its cleverness is not enough to cover its shortcomings.

Poetic but bleekly pessimistic version of the Danish tragedy.

Visually, the film is a stunner, dotted with psychedelic colors and many shades of red -- one battle is fought with red laser-gun sights -- some looking realistically like blood. When gangsters open fire, their falls are choreographed like a ballet. The problem comes when the cast opens its mouth and Elizabethan dialogue tumbles out.

The rush into gunfights and car chases pushes the text in all the wrong directions. As written, the 400-year-old words are still fresher than anything ripped from “Miami Vice.”

Say hello to my leetle dagger! Shakespeare meets "Scarface" in an Aussie adaptation of "Macbeth" gone gangsta.