The mid to late 2000s featured a particularly prevalent trend of extending a game’s reach by porting it to as many platforms as possible, regardless of whether or not those platforms were a good fit. Games like Need for Speed: Most Wanted, 007: Quantum of Solace, and Cars 2, alongside so many more, saw releases on consoles and PC, as expected, but also saw downgraded or drastically different versions hit handhelds like the PSP, Nintendo DS, and even mobile phones.

The trend hit a number of major console and PC games of the era. Perhaps, most surprisingly, the acclaimed first-person adventure BioShock saw the release of a mobile port known as BioShock 3D. Though there’s a tendency to wave away the handheld or mobile versions of console games like BioShock, its mobile development is a fascinating example of the work that went into such an adaptation. According to Tridev, the developers of BioShock 3D who spoke to IGN about its creation, such a port included any number of technical, creative, and bureaucratic challenges that demonstrate the difficulties of making a triple-A game run on a phone barely able to play Brick Breaker.

And no, this is not the port of BioShock to mobile, nor the infamous Bioshock game announced exclusively for the PS Vita at Sony’s 2011 E3 press conference, which was never officially cancelled (but was absolutely cancelled). This is a remake of the first Bioshock game designed to run on Javascript-capable flip phones, and its developers offered us a glimpse of what it’s like to bring one of gaming’s most beloved stories to a platform it was never originally intended for.

Expectations vs. Reality

The first challenge Vijay Venkatramani, Tridev’s studio manager at the time, told us the team faced was deciding what the actual scope of BioShock 3D should be compared to the original game.

“This was hard considering all the limitations we had to work with back then,” he said. “In the end, we decided to split the game into two parts. That way people wouldn’t be put off by larger download times; the download speeds [at the time] were slow. The second reason was production time. When development [began] we were told that we had 6 months to get something to market; a scary deadline for a project this big. We would be spending a lot of time repurposing tools from [Predator: The Duel 3D, the game that proved the team’s technical expertise and landed them the BioShock 3D project] and adapting them to Bioshock's gameplay. In short, there was no way we could get the whole game out [as one product].”

Tridev had plenty of mobile experience to pull from in attempting such a feat on such a short timeline, but they still had to build BioShock 3D from scratch and deal with weighty expectations coming off of the beloved reception of the original.

“One of the challenges was squeezing the scale of the game to fit the crummy mobile phones back then,” recalled Arjun Nair, BioShock 3D’s producer. “2K Games had assigned an external producer to work with us to ensure that the final game matched their expectations of a BioShock game. Them coming from a console background and our reality of working with mobile phones led to a lot of friction initially. They wanted a literal port of the game, but we knew we had to cut down on not only art, but also some elements of the game if we had any hope of getting the game out on a phone.

“It’s important to note that we didn’t get any code or technical design documents from [2K] – we had to design and write all the tech stuff from scratch. The initial expectation from the management was to do a ‘quick' mobile port in less than 6 months. The actual game took a year to complete and ship. To do all that in a year is, frankly, amazing, and a testament to the skill and motivation of everyone on the team – design, art, code [and] QA.”

Learning How To Kill 2K's Darlings

Designing and rebuilding such a beloved game from scratch for less powerful machines would be no small undertaking itself. But Tridev also continued to butt heads with 2K regarding issues of scope even after deciding on the two part split, according to the Tridev developers we spoke to. One of the biggest points of contention was how the team wanted to cut some levels they deemed non-essential for the mobile version, such as Arcadia and Return to Arcadia.

“From the design side of things, I had actually cut down a few levels that weren’t contributing to the main storyline,” said Poornima Seetharaman, BioShock 3D’s lead designer. “Initially the 2K team wasn’t aligned to it. I insisted on having a chat with them and explaining the reason behind it – that went well and we managed to cut a few levels.”

Mobile phones of the time, some of the most popular being the iPhone 4 and HTC Desire, simply didn’t have the memory or graphical processing power to deliver a direct port of BioShock, so the team employed clever tricks to get it to run at all, let alone smoothly.

“The large level maps were literally rendered as a semi-voxel map,” Venkatramani explained. “If you were seeing a large floor, it was [actually] just one polygonal asset tiled to create the entire floor. Any perceived variations were just clever tiling and UV mapping. We couldn’t use very large assets for the levels because most of that poly/texture budget was taken up by all the characters. We had to constantly fight to push resource budgets for each part of each level.”

“[It took] some mathemagic to make it all happen,” Nair added.

Tridev eventually received the original game design document from 2K, but couldn’t use the high-poly models due to the lack of GPUs on mobile phones.

“We had to intelligently cut down levels just so that they retained their flavor and identity while still being able to fit in memory,” Nair said.

And despite all those technical hurdles, a partial playthrough of BioShock 3D on Youtube showcases not just how different the mobile version looks, but how closely it captures the essence of the original. That clear reverence for BioShock’s world came from a study of the console version so intense Venkatramani said he eventually grew sick of it.

“We bought the Xbox 360, got the game, took over one of the meeting rooms and made that into a gaming roo- ahem, research room,” he said. “Then we played each aspect of the game over and over and over again till we would appreciate every nuance. We also got sick of it. I personally didn't play any of the subsequent BioShock games.”

“I had to play through BioShock so many times to take notes, photos, and videos to get a complete breakdown of it – I don’t think I got the time to sit back and enjoy the game at all,” Seetharaman said.

The Sounds of the Sea

Once the overall scope of BioShock 3D had been decided and the team knew the original BioShock from Arcadia to Point Prometheus and everywhere in between, the challenge of distilling the mechanics and atmosphere of the console game into mobile phones had to be tackled. Critics and players alike hailed BioShock for the deep immersion players experienced while exploring the underwater city of Rapture. The sounds of creaking walls and dripping water were key components of that, but most audio files from the original BioShock were far too big for the limited memory and storage space available on old phones. Tough decisions had to be made in adapting BioShock to its mobile form, as the team worked to convey the kind of information the original’s sound did, without taking up an inordinate amount of precious memory.

“The console game had amazing spatial audio that helps you locate enemies in a level,” Nair said. “Our game, in contrast, had to make do with very little audio. Since we could not use audio to help locate enemies, we decided to use visual indicators to tell players where enemies could be coming from.”

“I really wished we could squeeze in more sounds for the sake of immersion, but we had to make those tough calls,” Venkatramani added.

Further sound-related cuts included converting BioShock’s beloved audio diaries into text-based versions, and the adjustments to important story elements didn’t stop there.

“Some important reveals were converted to 2D cutscenes instead of interactive ones,” Seetharaman said. “We worked extensively with the tech team to get entire levels done based on triggers so that we can spawn enemies [and] open or close doors depending on the player's position – not just for the surprise element, but to help with [performance] as well.”

As well as having to convert cutscenes into slideshows – such as the iconic bathysphere descent into Rapture – many separate elements of the original had to be adapted to meet the limited capabilities of mobile phones of the time. Limiting how much of a level was visible at one time greatly helped the team keep the levels as close to the originals as possible.

“All the doors in the game were opaque unlike the original,” Seetharaman said “We also added doors where [they] didn’t exist originally, so that we didn’t have to render the entire level. The whole level design implementation was an immense effort from art, tech, and design.”

It wasn’t just enough to retrofit the levels so that the phones could handle them, Tridev had to ensure people could comfortably play through them on a wide range of devices.

“The phones we were targeting back then were not fragmented just on screen size, processing power, and memory specifications, [but also] we had to map different control schemes for different devices,” Venkatramani said. “They all had buttons back then and some of those configurations weren’t standard. Also, every device had its own set of issues with memory management and rendering. We had our own in-house engine – ICE 3D – built to handle most of these considerations.”

“We had auto-aim enabled, as it was hard to make accurate movements and aim with the different mobile controls – even things like reducing or removing the kickback on the machine gun [helped],” Seetharaman said.

What 2K wanted for BioShock 3D simply wasn’t possible at the time, and everyone at Tridev knew that. Even though their mobile port could never be an exact replica of the original, the team made smart, necessary cuts to bring the most authentic version of BioShock to mobile phones that they could. In spite of some creative and corporate clashes, Seetharaman, Nair, Venkatramani, and the rest of the Tridev team managed to develop BioShock 3D quickly, from scratch, and they’re proud of the game they brought to life.

“When I do look back at what we had to work with back then, I still find it hard to believe that we pulled it off,” Venkatramani said. “I’m glad it's over, but I do have fond memories of those days. I did some of my best game development work back then and made some very good friends along the way.”

“This is one of my career bests and will always be,” Seetharaman said. “The team worked so hard on this and, while it was hard, it made us all level up in our career much faster! We all feel amazingly proud about it! I wish we had preserved it better and realized the innovations we did. Back then, it was us just doing our job.

“I think we were at our creative best then, coming up with unique solutions to work with those limitations.

Issy van der Velde is a freelance writer for IGN.

In the anime-focused TUDUM: A Netflix Global Fan Event pre-show, a brand-new poster and new details for Ultraman's second season were revealed.

While we already knew Ultraman's second season would arrive on Netflix in 2022, this new teaser art shows off Ultraman joined by Zoffy, Jack, Taro, Seven, and Ace and teases that the "Ultra 6 Brothers finally reunite."

Armor up. Ultraman is coming.

See Season 2 in 2022. pic.twitter.com/q4fIQTduZ6

— Netflix Geeked (@NetflixGeeked) September 25, 2021

Shinjiro Hayata/Ultraman's voice actor Ryohei Kimura was the one presenting this Ultraman segment of TUDUM's pre-show, and he gave fans a few more details as to what they can expect from season 2.

"Shinjiro Hayata, the son of Hayata Shin, who was once Ultraman, is the new protagonist," Kimura said. "After Ultraman leaves Earth, Shinjiro fights to become a hero for a new generation. A typical teenage hero in a metallic powered suit. Featuring his comrades like Seven and Ace, you can enjoy action scenes against enemies such as Ace Killer or Adad.

"In Season 2, Zoffy, Jack, and Taro join Ultraman, Seven, and Ace. The Ultra 6 Brothers finally reunite. The action and story are powered up in Season 2. Don't miss it!"

Netflix also shared a bit more about season 2's plot in the following summary;

"Several years have passed since the events of Ultraman, with the legendary "Giant of Light" (光の巨人 Hikari no Kyojin) now a memory, as it is believed he returned home after fighting the many giant aliens that invaded the Earth," Netflix's press release reads. "Shin Hayata's son Shinjiro seems to possess a strange ability, and it is this ability, along with his father's revelation that he was Ultraman, that leads Shinjiro to battle the new aliens invading the Earth as the new Ultraman."

Ultraman Season 1 premiered in 2019 and, in our review, we said, "Netlfix's Ultraman dazzles with its captivating story about Shinjiro Hayata's journey from high school student to protector of the world. The action is nonstop and exciting, and even though the larger narrative could have used more time to develop its supporting cast, Ultraman is definitely worth adding to your queue."

Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to [email protected].

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

With the Aftermath expansion, World War Z is a much different game than when it debuted in 2019, and overwhelmingly for the better. With more episodes to rampage through, a greater selection of playable classes, and dozens of major quality-of-life improvements (like zombies no longer being able to pull you off ledges and devour you in the most unfair manner imaginable, for example), there’s a lot to love about it these days. Aftermath is the next major step for this sleeper hit and one that mostly succeeds at moving the zombie-filled shooter in the right direction. That said, with ongoing online issues, forgettable stories, and some gameplay growing pains, it still has plenty of room to grow.

One of the more noteworthy things Aftermath adds is two excellent new campaigns that take you to reclaim Vatican City in Rome and to the utterly dismal wastes of Kamchatka, Russia. As with previous episodes, these episodes are challenging, heart-pounding nightmare scenarios that pit you and up to three co-op buddies against literally thousands of zombies while setting traps, managing resources like med kits and grenades, and trying desperately not to blow yourself up by firing a rocket launcher at point-blank range.

Rome is the more by-the-numbers of the two: it takes a well-known destination, gives it whatever the opposite of a facelift is, then lets you and your friends blast your way through it for a laugh. Aside from the new sights, sounds, and giant flaming pits filled with zombies, there isn’t much to distinguish Italy from other destinations. It’s still good ol’ fashioned face-smashing fun with a few highlights, like when you have to guide and refuel a van through the streets of Rome while under constant undead assault. Nothing really stuck with me very long after I beat it, though, except maybe those flaming pits filled with dead zombies; those might give me nightmares.

The frozen tundra of Kamchatka, on the other hand, has some really memorable moments, like one area where a blizzard causes you to take damage just for being outside for short periods so you’ve gotta race between heaters while fighting off waves of brain-eaters. There’s also some great puzzle sections that require teamwork, like one where your crew has to use a flamethrower to melt doors that’ve been frozen shut while the others provide cover fire, or another where you have to fix an electrical grid by finding and pulling levers in the right order. Fairly straightforward tasks quickly become formidable undertakings with the constant threat of zombie hordes, and the best-laid plans can become a comedy of errors in no time at all. Compared to the fairly straightforward design of Rome, it was really nice seeing the developers have some over-the-top fun with Russia.

Even when the new episodes are at their best, though, Aftermath still fails to improve in the way of storytelling, which is still as disappointing as it’s ever been. Precisely zero characters are fleshed out or interesting in any way, and their dialogue is campy and mostly serves as background noise while you run around shooting things. In fact, I feel like 90% of the time I heard a character speak, they were politely reminding me not to accidentally shoot them in the head. Cause, y’know, friendly fire is a pretty common mishap when you’re fighting thousands of zombies in claustrophobic areas and the characters will never not comment on it. I’m all for some mindless fun and World War Z has that in spades, but telling actual stories in the style of Left 4 Dead would make the world feel more worth saving.

My personal favorite addition in Aftermath, though, is the addition of an optional first-person mode, which breathes new life into every aspect of World War Z. Getting up close and personal with the flesh parades you square off against adds a whole new level of panic from behind the eyes of your character. As an FPS fan, I felt right at home taking on the horrors of the apocalypse this way, and it gave me another reason to go back and replay World War Z’s older episodes.

The caveat here is that, for whatever reason, aiming down the sights of your weapons has been curiously left out of first-person mode. Lots of guns have scopes, but instead of looking down them, you look down the side of the weapon, which feels very odd, clunky, and downright unsatisfying. It’s especially weird since ADS already existed in World War Z on some weapons, like the sniper rifle, so it’s not like looking down scopes just isn’t something you ever did in third-person. For all the added immersion the first-person perspective gave me, I was pulled right out of it again when I found myself looking past my scope during combat. I seriously cannot overstate how weird that felt, no matter how long I played; I probably muttered something like “So we’re just not gonna use that scope, huh?” a dozen or so times per play session.

Aftermath also adds some welcome changes to the sandbox in the form of an eighth character class called the Vanguard and some new melee weapon options, both of which succeed at evolving the close-ranged combat. As the name implies, the Vanguard is all about getting up in the enemies’ faces and comes equipped with an electric shield that you can use to charge through dozens of zombies or block pathways by turning yourself into a human barricade. It takes a bit of skill to get the hang of, as I learned from my many ill-advised dives into piles of zombies, but mastering it is a lot of fun and can be invaluable in keeping your team alive. Whereas other character classes quickly become Zeke lunch at close range, the Vanguard is much more viable, even if the high risk/high reward involved might not be for everyone.

The new melee options, though, are just a good time all around. Now featuring dual-wielded weapons like the sickles and heavy weapons like the sledgehammer, the melee system has been completely revamped with a perk system that helps you flesh out your playstyle. Using the sickles for example, allows you to attack faster and less lethally than other melee weapons, but has a perk that heals your character when you get killing sprees; the fire axe, meanwhile, is slower and more lethal and carries a perk that makes you more effective when fighting Zekes that are on fire. The improved melee system adds some much-needed variety to gameplay and also slightly improves the viability of close-range combat in general, which previously was only used by those with a nagging death wish. That said, you still won’t be able to tackle the undead masses with melee alone unless you’ve really optimized your Vanguard class around it, but it does help to get you out of the occasional bit of unplanned face-to-face time with a zombie or two, which is a godsend.

While most of Aftermath’s contributions to World War Z are welcome, one in particular just left me scratching my head: rats. That’s right: big, black rats with tails and everything. Y’know, those creepy things from A Plague Tale: Innocence and also my apartment in college. I really don’t know why the developers thought these were important to add, but now roaming packs of ravenous rats will sometimes spawn in a level and just start eating your face right off. Since they’re a horde of tiny enemies that can’t easily be killed with bullets, the only real defense against them are explosives or flamethrowers, which aren’t always readily available. Sometimes a perfectly good run of a level will unexpectedly be interrupted by a swarm of rats that start eating your teammate, which wastes your valuable healing kits and ammo, or – even more embarrassingly – straight-up killing your whole team. To be fair, the randomness of the rat swarms can be pretty entertaining and are definitely not without their novelty, but honestly, I would rather if they weren’t there at all.

Far more disappointing than a herd of hairy rodents though, is that the online experience in World War Z is still extremely rocky in Aftermath. I was lucky to have a group of friends to play with most times, and although loading into levels and keeping a stable connection can be rough on occasion, it’s still a mostly serviceable experience when you bring your own team. But if you’re hoping to matchmake with others, things go from workable to painfully broken. You should expect extremely long wait times to get matched up with others or sometimes just waiting in the lobby infinitely. Your best bet is to just begin a public game and wait for others to join partway through – a method that isn’t only not as fun as doing the whole level with a full team, but also isn’t a guarantee and you might end up going through the entire thing with AI-controlled bots that can’t fight their way out of a wet paper bag. The alternative to this painful online experience is to play completely solo with AI to leave nothing up to chance, but this is an equally bad time, so you’re left to choose between the lesser of two evils. So bring your own friends, or be prepared for a headache.

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is making more waves with its cast. Warner Bros. has tapped Jani Zhao, Indya Moore, and Vincent Regan to star alongside Jason Momoa in the DC sequel, per The Hollywood Reporter.

Additionally, Randall Park has been confirmed to reprise his role as marine biologist Dr. Stephen Shin from the first film.

Zhao will play Stingray, an original character created for the movie. It is currently unclear where her allegiances will lie in the film. Zhao has an expansive catalog of TV credits in Portugal. The new Aquaman will mark her English-language feature debut.

Moore will portray Karshon, a character that originally appeared as a Green Lantern villain. Originally a shark, Karshon gained an intelligence and telepathic abilities after getting mixed up with some radiation. Moore was a main cast member on the FX series Pose. They also had featured roles in 2019's Queen & Slim and this year's Escape Room: Tournament of Champions.

Regan has been cast as Atlan. Atlan is the ancient ruler of Atlantis who forced the kingdom to sink beneath the ocean. The character was played by Graham McTavish in a brief appearance in the first Aquaman. Regan is no stranger to action blockbusters, having starred in films like 300, Snow White and the Huntsman, and Clash of the Titans.

Zhao, Moore, Regan, and Park join an expansive ensemble that includes many returning cast members from the first Aquaman, including Patrick Wilson, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Amber Heard, and Dolph Lundgren.

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is set to hit theaters on December 16, 2022. For more about the sequel, read about why director James Wan decided to return for the follow-up.

J. Kim Murphy is a freelance entertainment writer.

The Tragedy of Macbeth was reviewed out of the New York Film Festival, where it made its world premiere. It will debut in limited theaters on Dec. 25 and on Apple TV+ on Jan. 14.

There have been Macbeth movies for nearly as long as there has been cinema. There are few places left to go with faithful big-screen adaptations, and ever fewer untapped re-imaginings of the 500-year-old text; there’s a fantastic Bollywood version, there’s one with Melbourne gangsters, and there even exists a low-budget indie set in a corporate office headed by CEO Duncan King (though that one is hard to find). However, director Joel Coen — one half of the Coen brothers — seems fully aware of this history, and so he looks backward, rather than forward, with The Tragedy of Macbeth, a hyper-stylized piece that straightforwardly adapts the play and evokes numerous eras of Shakespeare on-screen (primarily, Orson Welles) while also paying homage to the medium of the stage.

In Coen’s film, Denzel Washington is Macbeth, Frances McDormand is Lady Macbeth, fair is still foul, and foul is still very much fair — but up is also down, and vice versa. The opening frame snaps from black to blinding white with the sound of a camera shutter, which, alongside the old-school 4:3 Academy aspect ratio, promises both a capital “f” Film and a disorienting experience. Clouds and circling crows slowly fade into frame, though what we’re actually looking at when the movie begins — or rather, from what point of view — takes a moment to figure out, as is the case throughout the rest of the film.

Little in the text is new — the witches’ prophecy still nudges Macbeth and Lady Macbeth toward the pursuit of power — but the presentation is always surprising. The atmosphere is foggy and filthy. In open fields, this means you can never quite tell how close a friend or foe might be. In the ornately designed interiors, it means light becomes gorgeously textured.

What stands out first and foremost about The Tragedy of Macbeth is its visual architecture. The theatrical sets resemble silhouettes of something baroque; they are humongous, but their details have been stripped away, leaving only arches and windows, and illusions of grandeur in stark, high-contrast black and white. The light wraps around each wall and pillar, and alternately hides and illuminates the characters and their ambitions as they stride through pools of light, moving from background to foreground, as if sauntering downstage to greet the audience. Many film actors have played Macbeth, but few, other than perhaps Toshiro Mifune, have felt like true movie stars while doing so, the way Washington does when he emerges from behind a haze. His presence almost makes it part like a velvet curtain.

However, while Macbeth’s arrival is alluring, it’s soon offset by the contorted physical presence of Kathryn Hunter as the play’s three witches (or in this case, one witch from whom the others seem to emerge). It’s hard not to be unsettled by the way these “weird women” first materialize — or by Hunter’s animalistic movements, or the way her voice booms and echoes. For every picturesque moment, there’s something discomforting in store; for every thoughtfully composed close-up reminiscent of silent cinema, a mere droplet or a footstep is turned into a deafening interruption. The story may be familiar, but the film never lets us feel at ease, as it begins its descent into the strange and phantasmagorical, with frequent homages to shots and dreamlike details from Roman Polanski’s Macbeth.

After Macbeth’s ally Banquo (Bertie Carvel) questions if they really saw the three women, or if they had “eaten on the insane root,” the film’s striking expressionism — in the vein of German masters like Robert Wiene and Fritz Lang — begins to reveal itself. Coen, cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel, and production designer Stefan Dechant conspire to create a visual echo of Banquo’s line by turning an unassuming tent into a projection screen, upon which the shadows of roots and branches move in subtle, hallucinatory fashion behind Macbeth. Physical space is rarely what it seems. Each exterior setting is enveloped by a mysterious practical backdrop that plays with perspective, so that its boundaries can’t be easily determined. During transitions, lights occasionally fade in and out as they would on stage, but in several cases, movement from one scene to the next feels both continuous and impossible, as if instead of cutting away, the camera had simply turned upside down to capture action unfolding on the ceiling. The film’s frequently unbroken appearance evokes Hungarian director Béla Tarr — whose own version of Macbeth was presented in two lengthy takes — but it also echoes the feeling of watching a story unfold on stage, where time and space all flow through a single location.

Of course, none of this would matter if the performances didn’t follow suit and feel as winding and mysterious. The cast is fantastic all around. Corey Hawkins is a valiant Macduff. Brendan Gleeson makes for a kindly King Duncan. Harry Melling surprises as Malcolm, a character who undergoes an operatic face-turn akin to pro wrestling. Alex Hassell’s sly Ross is especially noteworthy, as is his serpentine attire; he’s at the center of one of the film’s minor story changes (alongside Hunter, who doubles as the Old Man) which gives the film a particularly fatalistic bent. However, McDormand and Washington’s poetic approach to the words is ultimately what makes the movie shine.

McDormand’s Lady Macbeth is sharp and pointed. Her every word is measured. We can feel her resolve in the way she articulates each syllable, and while no actor in the film ever speaks plainly, McDormand’s delivery is especially geared towards punctuating Shakespeare’s iambic verse. When the film begins, Washington’s dialogue also has a musical quality, but of a different sort. His Macbeth rambles, though never without structure or intention; his words are delivered with his signature smoothness, and they wind and swim as he charges through each line. However, the more Macbeth is drawn into his wife’s madness, the more he begins to sound like her, and the more Washington makes each line and each enunciation explode.

If it has one fatal flaw, it’s that its mere 105-minute runtime makes Lady Macbeth’s role feel somewhat truncated, even though every one of her lines appears to be intact. This is Washington’s movie through and through, and in moments when it opts to press pause on the Bard’s words, this is usually so Macbeth can either engage in swordplay, or quietly consider those words. The more the film goes on, the less it affords McDormand the opportunity to play between the lines, or to create thoughtful emotional transitions during her character’s macabre journey.

Even still, a handful of initial, silent glances between the leading duo — during some of the more charged and rapid scenes — go a long way towards distinguishing their versions of the characters from what came before them. Theirs is a plan that, even though it follows the same trajectory as most other iterations, feels doomed and disconnected from the start. The words both actors speak to each other may follow Shakespeare’s metered rhythm, but the looks they exchange — and the way editors Reginald Jaynes and Lucian Johnston whip back and forth between those looks — feel disharmonious. In Coen’s version of the story, at no point does ambition ever feel intoxicating; instead, the conspiracy is soured from the start, and it makes the dark cloud of Macbeth’s fate loom more closely. The Ross-related story changes certainly help frame this idea in a logistical sense, but there is a bleakness to this Macbeth, and an immediate sense that his prophecy is self-fulfilling, an idea made all the more overt by a design choice surrounding a very specific scar, and the way it eventually comes into play.

Regardless of these minor departures, The Tragedy of Macbeth succeeds because of how it captures the familiar. It reassembles aesthetics from bygone cinematic eras, using simple, practical visual tricks, and stitches them together in complex patterns. It captures age-old story beats with thrilling panache, and its lead actors deliver well-known lines with spellbinding passion, answering the question of how you restage Macbeth for the umpteenth time, in 2021, with a resounding counter: you do it the way it’s been done before, and you do it better.