Appalling

Rating: 1/10 (21 February 2012)

I found this film literally unwatchable--I put up with it for perhaps ten minutes and then could take no more. Shakespeare's play is among the greatest ever written in English, but it was utterly ruined by the action. It was Ode to Joy done by a screamo band; it was Swan Lake done by break dancers.
Shakespeare's plays tell a story in moving and powerful ways, one of the reasons they can be read with nearly as much pleasure as may be gotten by seeing them performed on stage. The language tells the story, not the props, not the scenery, not even, particularly, the actors. In this version of the play, the language is lost. The props, scenery, and action overwhelm it. The dialogue, in the mouths of these actors, in the situations in which they deliver it, is utterly malapropos.
I've no idea why Mr Luhrmann made this film, but, in doing so, he did no service to either Shakespeare nor to his audiences. It might be a bit much to call it a desecration of Shakespeare's work, but it's not far from it. It's a parody. It's La Gioconda done in crayon.