Hated It!

Rating: 2/10 (5 September 2012)

Does any one remember Baz Luhrmann's Romeo & Juliet? You can't claim the reason it wasn't better liked was because of Shakespearian prose. That ship has already sailed. To continue with that interpretive path was smart and I held my breath in anticipation as the opening credits unfolded, mimicking news coverage. Very savvy, very current. I truly love Shakespeare's work but I can't stand when it's butchered and completely misunderstood by the likes of this ridiculous actor. He had no grace of nuance, none in his delivery and certainly none in his movement. The emotion had no context and that was really distracting. There was a moment when I thought the movie would be saved because there are some scenes where the actors seem to get it like in the first News Talk Show scene. But alas... And there were so many missed opportunities. No continuity at all. It's like the Actor MGR. just yelled over the P.A. "Think of an accent, any accent! Now use that one!" It's really confusing when Australian actors have a Scottish accent and American actors speak with Monty Python accents. No context. It's distracting. They're supposed to be in Rome, why not Italian accents? It's Shakespeare; why not English accents? It's a modern day interpretation, why not every one speak they're own voice? They obviously needed a dialect coach. LA Times says they kept the syntax while upgrading the rest. Yeah but see, not everyone did that. There were some actors that really delivered their lines but Ralphie boy didn't even play to his strengths. It's obvious he's not very self-aware. This is a story of duplicity so when the words do not match the emotion you can never tell where this guy was coming from because Fiennes is all over the place trying to topple William Shatner for the most over-acting-est actor there ever was. Seriously, go sit down somewhere.