Scotland’s bleak mountains seem to sigh in mournful resignation when Macbeth begins reaching for the throne with gore-soaked hands. The general has spilled blood before — artful splashes captured in stop-and-go slo-mo in service of the king — but the violence to come is best expressed by a crimson sunset and the soundtrack’s wheezing dirges. The land has seen all this before, it seems to say, and it’s helpless to stop the doom that awaits.
The latest adaptation of “Macbeth” is as much a directorial work as it is William Shakespeare‘s. Justin Kurzel (“The Snowtown Murders”) injects fresh blood — and lots of it — to his cinematic translation of the 400-year-old play through astute casting, adrenaline-fueled action, gorgeously portentous landscapes and, perhaps most excitingly, new contexts for familiar soliloquies.