ironhorse_iv Review of Romeo + Juliet

Romeo + Juliet (1996)

This is what happen if William Shakespeare lived in the 1990's.

[7/10 · 14 February 2013]

This is how his plays would look like. Romeo and Juliet is just one revision by director Baz Luhrmann and the MTV Generation, as the 400 year old written text by thee William Shakespeare is put though a grinder, and out comes the meat of the story repacked and sold to the audience. Romeo and Juliet is the story, oops I meant Romeo + Juliet is the story of two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately reconcile their feuding families. While most people know the plot, this movie just gives you all the highlights clips of the film in prologue. Yes, you don't believe have to bother watching the film, it's just shoot it up there with fast pace zooming and out, with epic background music. Unlike the 1968 Zeffirelli version, this takes place in the fictional modern-day location called Verona Beach, where the two houses of Capulets and Montagues are just giant corporations. What do they sell? Who knows-- all we know is that they hate each other for some odd reason and it's ripping the city apart. The play was set in Italy, but in this film, I have no clue if it's Latin America, America or some country in Spain. Believe me, I love Shakespeare, but it has its place, and doesn't need to be reduced to nausea-inducing jokes like having guns manufactured by Sword, wild car crashes, and over used drug use. That's just stupid and unnecessary. This is an antiquated love story, made for its time and best when set in its time. There is nothing good about making a loud, obnoxious, absurdly anachronistic monstrosity and sometimes this movie go overboard. Everything is modern, but the language of the film. If you don't understand the language, READ and study the story first. The language is early modern English, but has been translated into dozens of modern languages. By modernizing many aspects of the story and using popular, engaging actors to portray the roles, a new generation of fans can appreciate the gift of Shakespeare. Who would've thought to update Shakespeare to a modern setting, keep the original language, replace daggers with gun, and add a kick ass soundtrack? Quite frankly, it's genius and the execution brilliant, but it's a bit annoying. This movie does shows how Shakespeare can transcend time,culture, and age, but not well suite. I've always interpreted the story as a tragedy, not a love story. Romeo and Juliet is hardly a love story. Romeo (Leonardo DiCapiro) and Juliet (Claires Danes) are two love-sick teenagers rushing headlong toward doom. Claire Danes was so well casted. She fits this role as Julia perfectly. So innocent, so pure, so divine. Leo is not just a pretty face. It's his pure talent, his amazingly unique looks, the way he speaks, and laughs, his piercing eyes, the way he adapts into characters, his innocent yet cheeky intriguing personality, and his intelligence. I do love the scene where both of their character meet through a fish tank. It was catchy, but still both of their characters are flawed. Romeo and Juliet may be a satire of a romance story. Romantic love in the basic sense is nothing more or less than physical lust rather thanthe deep connection between two human beings. This seems to ring thought the characters as much of the theme of the piece is more loin love rather than love. Throughout, we are bombarded by sexual references, most of which are jocular. In the Queen Mab monologue, for example, Mercutio (Harold Perrineau) points his heavy laden and loaded, weapon at his own youthful tangled emotions. A powder keg of hot blood tormented and moved in night straightening. Youth is often lead by it's loins, and often into trouble. The stirring of mad blood leading to a fatal fate. This movie kinda ruins that monologue using Queen Mab as a drug. Harold does a great old as Mercutio, but it felt like Mercutio was just there to be a homosexual cross dresser drug dealer. That's pretty far from the source there, Baz. As the film goes on, a number of great theme comes into play, the bright colors, immaculate hearts, religious symbols like crosses, and stage on the beach makes the film seem surreal and strange. The violence is not so poetic when you take a bullet to the head. Have they actually read the book? We are so in glue as if it's a true love story when it's source really wasn't saying that. The whole play takes place over like four days!How is that true love?!Love is usually the cause of nothing but anguish for the character's in his plays. Love not only consumes their lives, but often ends with them dying, killing someone, or going through a lot of ridiculousness before they can have what they love. It's not based on the subject he wrote in, but how Shakespeare wrote about love that proves the above statement. There's a sonnet he wrote that details his thoughts on love, and it's not flattering. In the play they're supposed to be quite young and don't take time to make good decisions. Both Romeo and Juliet are deluded in their love for each other, and their romance is a product of them wanting to escape their realities. Wouldn't the simplest explanation for their romance be forbidden fruit tastes the sweetest? I think this modernization of Romeo and Juliet makes it more reliable and entertaining. The supporting actors like Pete Postlethwaite (Father Laurence), John Leguizamo (Tybalt), and Miriam Margolyes (the Nurse) all play their parts great. Kissing you by Des'ree is a great emotional song, but still Romeo and Juliet are so freaking unstable in the modern sense. It's not a happy ever after, but a tragedy that this couldn't live up to the 1968 version.