Andrew Wood

I wanted this to be great. Macbeth is a part that is perfect for Denzel Washington and I still think he could have been a great screen Macbeth if it weren’t for the film script which wasn’t as good as it could have been. Remember that this is an adaptation of Shakespeare’s play. Most of the great lines are in there but it just didn’t get going until near the end. Then we saw Macbeth’s internal struggle but up until then it was all about plot development. Lady Macbeth’s descent into madness was also glossed over. If ever there was a play that relies on the words and not the visuals then this is it. Speaking of which the visuals were okay but the photography was a bit limited. So in conclusion, good in parts but didn’t really get inside the heads of the Macbeths enough for me.

An interesting movie. Not a great movie but we enjoyed it. Somehow it felt personal to Tom Hanks. There is a moment in the film where everyone in the restaurant falls silent and he looks straight into the camera for a minute as if to say ‘you are involved in this too.’ It was quite unnerving. The movie is not a biopic of Mr Rogers although it does briefly touch upon his personal life a couple of times. It’s more a sort of cry out to the world, asking us to be more kind and caring to one another. In these times when everyone is getting so angry all the time, I thought it was quite timely. You couldn’t say it had a great script, amazing camerawork or art direction but it was a pleasant way to spend a couple of hours. Returning to Tom Hanks, who seems to always choose his films carefully, I was reminded of his reaction to Ricky Gervais Golden Globes speech a couple of weeks ago. It makes you think.

Not great. But then the original three films were very hard to follow. The problem is they insisted on carrying on. Still there’s obviously money in this films. The cinema was packed. That doesn’t make it a great film though. Lacked characterisation and romance.

Why make a whodunnit movie at this point in time? The genre is completely exhausted and this example barely makes any innovations. The answer is that this film is a vehicle for a thinly veiled critique of present day American society as represented by the Thrombey family. Each family member is utterly odious, selfish, sycophantic, hypocritical and bigoted. At its heart is a latent neocon sensibility as most clearly represented by the almost fascist teenage grandson. The only sympathetic member of the household is the nurse, daughter of an illegal immigrant of South American origin. Ring any bells? The final scene of the film, when the family is completely dispossessed of all their property and the nurse looks down on them from the balcony of their family home, could hardly be more explicit. As such, the film is really rather obvious and clumsy in the exposition of its ideas. As a result it’s rather unsatisfying.