Please don't spend money on this.

One of my all time favorites.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

The acting in this movie is really good.

The text has been modernised and brought forward to resemble a modern war. However this war is a fictional one made to resemble the war between the Volscans and the Romans, a more effective way would have been to place this within a modern conflict which would have resonated more with the audience. All of the settings have been kept true to how Shakespeare intended yet that seems to be the end of what he intended. I had my doubts when I saw that a screenplay had been written and my fears were realised when watching the film. I tried to follow the film with the play however I soon hit trouble when I realised that Logan had changed most of the script. There was no real fluidity in the film and I realised that there was many changes within the script in order to fit it to the big screen. The character of Valeria is all but forgotten in the film and in what I can only guess is poetic licence the character of Menenius kills himself on the bank of a canal. This I thought was strange as Menenius was a key character in the play and yet Logan decided to write his screenplay so that Menenius took his own life, something I deem out of character of him. John Logan has all but butchered the original script and as far as I can tell only one full passage remains from the original text, this comes from scene 3.3 and is spoken by Coriolanus. The passage 'you common cry... There is a world elsewhere' is the only one I could follow in its entirety from the book while watching the film. The female characters of Volumnia and Virgilia are cut and a smaller role than in the script with almost an entirety of one of their scenes cut from existence. It seems lines have been removed to add in unnecessary violence. Through the entirety of the film there were moments when violence seemed like it was just added to create a brutal and bloody storyline. While that is important in this particular play, the main theme found throughout is betrayal. Coriolanus is betrayed by his people when they banish him, Aufidius is betrayed when Coriolanus decides on peace, Coriolanus betrays the people of Rome when he looks down on the poor. These moments seem to be lost amongst the violence. The film soon became just another war film instead of honouring the plays beginning as a Shakespearian Tragedy. As well as losing some of the lines to Logan's screenplay we lose some lines to the intense noise present in some scenes. During the scenes at war the sound team have taken the idea of conflict too far. Gunshots were all to frequent and the shooting of innocent people made it hard to watch in places. I found this far too brutal to class it as anything but a war film and whilst good in its own right, the film lacked the finesse expected from something that began life on stage. Scenes had a specific order and a lot of the war is not shown on stage, when changing this you run the risk of losing the flow, which this did in some places. Sometimes it seemed rushed whilst the 'epic' battle scenes were slowed right down. This could be due to the screenplay being written by the same man who wrote the screenplay for Gladiator. I find it quite easy to follow and understand old English; however the changes and cuts made caused much of the meaning to be lost and lost to what. Violence and blood. This is all that I could really take from it. A good film in its own right, however a bad adaptation of a piece of Shakespeare.

Caius Martius is Rome's most successful general; leading from the front to secure victory over the Volsces. However he is not popular with the people; they take his soldierly attitude to be arrogance and to be fair he has a fairly low opinion of them too. After his latest victory he is given the title Coriolanus and encouraged to run for the position of Consul in the senate. Tributes Brutus and Sicinius are uncomfortable with this fearing he will one day seek to control Rome without the senate. They quickly turn the people against Coriolanus and he is forced into exile. With nowhere else to go he heads to the Volscian city of Antium. Here he joins forces with his erstwhile enemy Tullus Aufidius and starts his revenge against Rome.Ralph Fiennes does a brilliant job, both as director and in the role of Coriolanus. He captures the military brilliance of the man as well as his sense of betrayal when cast out from the city he has served for so long. As such he rather overshadows Gerard Butler's Aufidius, although this may be because we get to see far less of his character. The rest of the main cast do a fine job, most notably Brian Cox who plays Coriolanus's friend Menenius, Vanessa Redgrave who plays his mother and James Nesbitt who is delightfully unpleasant as Sicinius.Before I started watching this I was unsure how the modern day setting would work but I need not have worried; in fact it worked very well. The Serbian locations clearly reminding the viewer that this is a timeless story; the battle scenes reminding one of the all too recent war that ravaged that part of the world in the '90s. Some viewers may have difficulty with the original Shakespearian dialogue but I found it engrossing as I had to concentrate just that little bit harder while watching. Overall I'd certainly recommend this film even if Shakespeare isn't 'your thing'; just be warned it is quite bloody at times.

Great performances by the cast, well directed, plenty of drama on Shakespeare's part -- what more can you ask for in a great movie? I love Shakespearean tragedies; they always hit so close home to me, every time, so I wonder why the movie has scored such a low number on IMDb so far?Tell me, is it the old tongue that daunts you so? I think the movie made the language extremely accessible to us without straying too far from source material; that, in its own right, is truly meritorious. I myself have never been a fan of Shakespeare before. I always thought his plays to be dull, unmoving and a fanciful dullard's play. Perhaps it was the numerous times in secondary school where we'd have cold readings of the script in my classroom and the very rare allowances of real, live, professional performances in actual theatre houses that made me feel this way. I blame this on the incompetence of most of my English teachers since, at times, I didn't get what it was they were trying to teach us -- and they were speaking plain English to us in the classroom, mind you!Shakespeare wrote his plays to be performed and what a fine job Ralph Fiennes did at delivering the story to us! I actually was able to follow most of what was going on without referring to any footnotes since Coriolanus was originally a play I've never heard of -- I blame this majorally on the fact that popular culture hasn't brought the story up nearly as often as like, say, Othello or Macbeth. (Remember, I was never a fan of Shakespeare.)The movie integrated a modern setting into the production -- and yes, I can already hear everyone's groans -- but Fiennes was able to pull it off like Luhrmann before him. There were done stunning visuals and all the blood and gore and violence made this two hour long viewing seem very brisk and fast-paced.Yet, addressing all previous complaints about the characters speaking in a relatively tongue, if you can't understand what's going on then perhaps you should go away and learn a bit more of the English language. Or, you can perhaps be a little more sympathetic towards such movies like these so you don't sound like a unintelligible bitch moaning about how unfair the movie is to us common people. I must admit, this movie does have an appeal to a certain group of the audience but never forget that your 'we' should never be used as a poor substitute for 'I' because that's a little unfair to the movie, don't you think?Alas, I've spent much of my time venting my frustration with other reviewers so let's get back to the gritty basics.Coriolanus explores themes such as pride, patriotism, fascism, politics, war. It tells the tale of a man who's both contemptuous and admirable, asking us whether it is right to lay down your beliefs of what is fair and moral to the demands of the mob, for the sake of peace. Like many of Shakespearean adaptations, this movie is intelligent, insightful and perceptive of human nature and behaviour. If this seems like a movie for you then grab a bag of popcorn because you'll enjoy this.

Coriolanus is a pretty interesting and engaging effort by Ralph Fiennes who is making his directorial debut with this film. I liked the idea with setting the film in modern times a la Jesus Christ Superstar, but I don't know if I liked the idea of using Shakespeare language because the film sometimes got confusing with all the old English. That being said, it's a fun, violent film and is pretty faithful to the original source as well.Fienne's film is about a general named Coriolanus who is expelled from Rome by the people because of his tyranny. So he sides with his mortal enemy, the Volscian leader Aufidius to take back Rome.The acting is pretty good. Ralph Fiennes does a solid job as lead actor and has some intense moments. Likewise, Gerard Butler does a good job as the blood lust Aufidius. Brian Cox and Vanessa Redgrave have good moments. As much as I like Jessica Chastain, I feel like she is not needed in this film.Overall, this is a good adaptation of Shakespeare and I love how it is set in modern times. But they should have stuck with modern English to avoid any confusion. I can't believe not many people saw this film, but it's a watchable, entertaining one. I rate this film 8/10.