Funny thing about Shakespeare;
there's this very noticeable correlation between which of his plays are tragedies
and which of them are historically accurate.
And it can also be observed that kings in his plays never turn out very well.
In case it wasn't clear already, this summary is tackling Macbeth.
Macbeth opens with the iconic Three Witches.
But this movie version kinda glosses over them and instead opens with EXPLOSIONS!
There's a war going on and one of the wounded soldiers is describing the valiant incredible efforts of Banquo and Macbeth.
Enter three witches/sinister nurses just chatting about their nefarious plans.
Ugh!
So then they won the intro call of duty cutscene,
establishing Macbeth as a great war hero,
and the other general type individuals agree to grant him the title of one of the traitors who was in charge of the army that they were fighting,
the treacherous Thane of Cawdor. One of them runs off to find Macbeth and tell him about his promotion.
The witches are back! And it's not exactly clear what the hell they're doing,
beyond scaring the ever-loving crap out of me in the first five minutes of the movie.
And here comes Macbeth and Banquo. They meet with the witches who call Macbeth Thane of Cawdor and tell him that he "shall be king hereafter"
which confuses him since as far as he knows the Thane of Cawdor is still alive.
Banquo tries to persuade him that fuzzy prophecies from terrifying Silent Hill nurses are not reasons to be afraid,
at which point the witches inform Banquo that his children shall be kings, although he himself will not be the king.
This wigs Macbeth out some more and he demands an explanation from the nurse witches,
who do some magical skedaddling and leave the confused duo alone. The other soldiers catch up to them and, surprise surprise,
name Macbeth as Thane of Cawdor which wigs him out even further, since it proves that the witches were right in calling him that.
Turns out the Thane of Cawdor had been a very naughty boy indeed, committing all the treasons and generally making a nuisance of himself.
Macbeth starts contemplating if the other things the witches said could possibly be true. Macbeth decides that if the prophecy is to come true,
it'll do so without his help, since he'd rather not get mixed up in a bunch of supernatural shenanigans.
An excellent decision in fact, and one that he will definitely stick with for the rest of the movie.
Woah there, hold up a second. Don't get ahead of yourself.
Over to King Duncan!
Duncan's talking about how much he trusted the Thane of Cawdor and how...unexpected his treason was and blah blah, sure hope history doesn't repeat itself.
He names Malcolm, who is apparently this guy, as the Prince of Cumberland, which apparently grates on Macbeth a little,
since prince is the next stage of evolution before king, and he was promised kingship.
But Macbeth again does his best not to think about it too much. Over to castle Macbeth! Lady Macbeth is reading a letter from Macbeth,
which briefs are on the situation. Lady Macbeth resolves to make sure that Macbeth shall, as is promised to him, be king.
But she thinks he might be too much of a flake to do it himself. If only there were a convenient scenario
in which Macbeth's ascent to kingship would be unimpeded. Then she learns that the king himself is coming to stay for the night
and she makes up her mind then & there to murder the crap out of him.
She asks evil spirits to "unsex" her
Ugh
so that her womanly sensitivities don't impede her murder plans.
This establishes Lady Macbeth as a ruthless, ambitious woman,
who considers her gender nothing more than a hindrance in her ambitions.
If ever there was a strong female Shakespeare character, this MUST be her!
Cut to Lady Macbeth scrubbing a wall.
Macbeth returns, a beautiful reunion and all that junk. Lady Macbeth tries to persuade Macbeth to murder King Duncan,
but he's not happy about that idea. Duncan and crew arrive at the castle and Lady Macbeth tries to make them feel safe and at home
*so they'll never suspect it when she kills all of them!*
Oh God, it's them again.
John Luke Macbeth is having a relaxing little monologue about the pros and cons of regicide.
He decides against it, at which point the Mrs. enters and verbally smacks him around until he agrees to murder his king.
Remember kids, a healthy relationship is based on equality and communication!
So they decide to kill Duncan that night and frame his two guards by giving them the daggers.
Macbeth goes to take a walk and has a fun little conversation with Banquo about how those witches DEFINITELY didn't get to him, or influence his behavior.
Banquo, due to owning more than two brain cells, is mildly suspicious of this.
Ooh, the dagger scene!
So here, Macbeth sees a floating dagger in the air symbolic of his urge to kill and also of his growing madness.
You know, every version of this play has a different opinion of whether or not the dagger is really there.
We spent a solid week discussing this nonsense in junior year English class.
Anyway, in this version, the dagger is totally a sign that he's gone bat guano nuts.
And then the...murders are done, I guess?
This movie has something against showing dead people.
I feel kinda cheated, to be honest.
Anyway,
Macbeth has a little post-murder freakout and Lady Macbeth is like "man up you flake!"
However, they both freak out upon hearing lots of knocking coming from the gates.
Turns out the knocking was Macduff, who's...
...apparently a character in this play? He hasn't been formally introduced yet.
Well anyway, apparently King Duncan asked him to come and check on him in the early morning,
which is why he came to the castle and...brought his entire family along, I guess.
He & Macbeth have a fun little chat and Macbeth directs him to the king's room,
which, as we know, is currently occupied by corps-ified king.
Macduff comes back and tells us that the king is dead!
Woah, when did that happen?
So the Macbeth duo are shocked, SHOCKED, to learn that King Duncan is dead.
Banquo found the two guards lying dead nearby, covered in the king's blood,
and Macbeth is like "Oh yeah, man. Sorry. I, uh, killed those guards after they killed the king."
And Macduff is all like "Why would you DO that?!?"
Macbeth is like "I was grieving dude, what do you want from me?"
And Macduff is like "Wait, when did you kill them? You didn't know that he was dead when I got here."
And then Lady Macbeth distracts everyone with a womanly fit of fainting.
The two sons of the late king, Malcolm and Donalbain, decide to split, so as to avoid the same fate as dear old dad.
Unfortunately, this crime scene fleeing dropped some suspicion on the vanished princes,
and leaves our good buddy Macbeth as next in line to the throne.
Well in't that convenient?
And Macbeth is officially crowned King of Scotland.
Woah, no no no no no.
This tragedy still has some steam.
Macbeth is having a banquet, and he invites Banquo and his adorable blond son Fleance.
Now, Banquo's been rather suspicious of Macbeth's newfound success,
but he doesn't see anything wrong with going to dinner with him.
He rides off with his son, at which point it's revealed that Macbeth has sent dudes to kill 'em both.
Not cool, Macbeth! You two were bros!
Lady Macbeth is in a bit of a bad way, suffering from a sudden attack of conscience.
And, in an interesting act of role-reversal, Macbeth is now the savagely murder-happy one, while Lady Macbeth is the one who wants to back down.
Macbeth's upcoming killing spree is mostly for his own peace of mind.
He may be king now, yes, but Banquo's sons are destined to succeed him and Macbeth can't rest easy until that is no longer possible.
The happy pair head off to their banquet and we switch over to Banquo, who is currently in the process of dying horribly.
Fleance manages to escape the murderers & return to tell Macbeth what happened.
Behind them, Banquo rises from the grave, just like another good man widely recognized in pop culture.
You know the one.
We're treated to a bit of a montage of what it's like to live under Macbeth's rule.
The bottom like appears to be that it sucks.
Banquet time!
The murderers show up and report to Macbeth, who swaps immediately from happy to psychotic upon learning that Fleance is still alive.
Macbeth returns to the banquet table, only to find that his party has been crashed by a certain guest of honor.
So Macbeth flips out at the sight of Banquo's ghost, which conveniently enough, no one else can see.
Lady Macbeth assures everyone that it's nothing to worry about, and he has these fits all the time.
He rambles about murder a bit, the ghost vanishes, there's some bizarre ballroom dance thing,
the ghost reappears, Macbeth flips out again, yells the iambic pentameter version of "come at me, bro"
ghost vanishes, everyone leaves, and Macbeth gives a really awesome sounding monologue that doesn't actually seem to be much.
Lady Macbeth starts going a wee bit crazy.
We learned then Macduff has gone to England to find Malcolm and get help in overthrowing Macbeth.
Pretty cool.
Enter three freestyling witches.
"about the cauldron go, In the poison'd entrails throw Toad, that under cold stone, Days and nights has 31"
Macbeth goes and talks to the witches again, who summon up some spirits to tell him cool stuff.
They tell him to watch out for Macduff, which is reasonable enough.
The second spirit tells him that no man born from a woman will be able to kill him.
Oooh, never heard that prophecy before-
And the third spirit tells him that he will only be defeated when Great Birnam Wood goes to Dunsinane Hill.
Ha, I only wish.
So Macbeth is like "Awesome! I got nothin' to worry about!"
But he asks one more question: if Banquo's children will ever rule his kingdom.
The witches are like "we're not telling you anything" but they summon a spirit anyway,
and this one's Fleance wearing full royal regalia, followed by a line of other boys and crowns.
And, I'm not certain, but either this family resemblance is uncanny, or every single one of these kids is actually Fleance.
I can't help it; all blonds look alike to me.
And here's our favorite zombie ending the line, the ghost of Banquo. The witches vanish and Macbeth decides to kill Macduff's entire family.
See he's trying out this new thing where he doesn't stop to consider his actions in case he talks himself out of them.
So then he kills Macduff's entire family.
Well Macbeth, if he didn't want to kill you before, I bet he sure does now!
Macduff contacts Malcolm, trying to get help. They argue about it for a while,
and then they learn from...this guy...that Macduff's wife and kids have been murdered.
After suffering from a bit of a blue screen of death,
Macduff decides to invade Scotland and Malcolm wholeheartedly agrees with him.
Cut to Casa de Macbeth, where Lady Macbeth has officially gone off her rocker.
She's sleepwalking, muttering about blood on her hands, all the good stuff.
Cut to the rebellion doing rebel-y things, like wearing camo pants and shouting.
Cut to Macbeth! He's gone a wee bit completely bonkers, demanding that people stop giving him
reports of the battle, since he already knows everything that he has to,
namely, that he'll win unless the impossible happens when a great forest up & migrates to a distant hill.
Patrick Stewart may be gettin' old but, he certainly knows how to rock a tank top-no! Focus! *clears throat*
Anyway, Macbeth is bloodthirsty & wants to fight, so he orders his soldiers to be even more ruthless and demands he be brought his armor.
Also he orders his doctor to cure Lady Macbeth of her crazy, which he can't do because that's NOT HOW PSYCHOLOGY WORKS, PEOPLE.
Cut to Malcolm, Macduff, and the rebels. They're in a forest, specifically the forest of Birnam.
Malcolm gets this great idea that each soldier cut down a branch and carry it with him, so that they're camouflaged as they move.
They then set a course to Dunsinane. Hands up if you see where this is going!
Lady Macbeth dies offscreen!
Macbeth is, obviously, devastated by this turn of events.
"She should've died hereafter."
Nevermind! Seems he's all out of caring for the day!
A messenger tells Macbeth that he thought he saw Birnam Wood begin to move toward the hill.
Unsurprisingly, Macbeth flips out. Looks like he found his caring for the day after all. But Macbeth still has one thing to comfort him;
he won't be killed by any man born of a woman, so he doesn't need to be afraid of any of the enemy soldiers.
Eh what's happening...
Macbeth kills this guy who decided that a knife was an adequate weapon to bring to a war zone.
Truly a victory for the forces of justice!
The noise attracts the attention of Macduff, who finds Macbeth, who somehow managed to get stinking drunk in approximately 10 seconds of screen time.
Macduff is all "come at me bro" and Macbeth is like "Dude. I've already killed enough of your blood relations; I don't need to add your blood to the collection."
Then he shoots him in the leg because he's evil people, God!
He's like "Seriously dude, jus-just chill out. You can't kill me anyway, since you were born from a woman."
And then Macduff is like "Plot twist; I was a Cesarean baby!
Ya butt!" And then they fight. And Macbeth...accepts death or something?
I don't know. Anyway he dies and it's pretty cool. Malcolm's king, it's awesome, and they all lived happily ever after.
*Something Wicked This Way Comes from Harry Potter plays*