No infinite variety remaining
And no such stuff as on which dreams are made:
All is reduced to spectacle and gore.
The movie opens with a wife complaining
Her husband’s overworked for what he’s paid.
She wants a house, a car, the bling – and more.
Stuck here on some cold world to mine the spice
And waiting for the old boss to retire,
She reads her horoscope and sees the light.
She feeds her man with simpering advice,
Her bosom heaves, her dark eyes full of fire:
“Let’s kill the guy and take what’s ours by right!”
A bullet in the face. The boss falls hard,
The cops arrive. A patsy’s framed for murder:
He takes the rap and ends up in the jailhouse.
Police-procedural . . . but now the Bard
Is taken on a journey far absurder
Than any dreamed up in a Southwark alehouse.
Look, rebel androids programmed by the killer
Rise up and threaten to destroy the earth,
The new king’s brain controlled by the machines.
The queen is kidnapped by a blue gorilla
And quotes real Shakespeare lines for what they’re worth,
(But only in a few deleted scenes).
A cute kid and his mom are stabbed to death
(A twenty-foot tall mutant gone quite barmy)
The king’s best buddy’s ripped apart by aliens.
The queen freaks out and croaks her final breath
When lots of trees start moving like an army.
Disguised, sort of (thanks, sponsors) as Arabians.
There’s blood, explosions, severed everything,
The latest CGI you can’t resist
And quadraphonic screams, pure sonic ham.
There’s no-one human who can kill the king?
(Beware – a spoiler!) There’s a final twist -
That guy Macduff is just a hologram!
Cue frenzied fighting in the spicy voids.
Macbeth, he gets a laser through his neck . . .
His head rolls like a football into space.
A geek called Malcolm fixes all the droids
And rules with wisdom (also lots of tech)
A perfect world where each man knows his place.
The spice is mined to benefit humanity,
The aliens all die from nuclear excision.
(And yes, there’s women wearing . . . none whatever.)
Another bloodbath of nonsense and profanity
Finds its way onto late night television
And YouTube commentators say it’s clever.
The studio sends it straight to DVD
So scholars on the sofa can watch carnage
With Hot Sam pretzels adding to the action.
The game will follow; merchandise will see
Investors make more dollars from this garbage.
The play’s the thing, although the text’s in traction.
But let’s not be too quick to look askance
As what we treasure most is torn apart,
And Shakespeare turned to something crude or funny.
For writers always like to seize the chance
To make a living from their noble art:
Like them, he mostly did it for the money.