A surprisingly original idea

Rating: 8/10 (4 October 2006)

In my personal opinion, I believe Shakespeare's writing is way too obscure and out there, and think those people who say "Shakespeare wrote for the common people" and such are either blatantly lying to us schoolchildren, or I can only cringe in terror at what plays written for educated people must have sounded like.
This movie doesn't change the dialect or dialog of the movie, and gives it a weird sort of artistic modern setting, which makes it not only a surprising and original twist, but makes it much more watchable to see a timeless tale truly tested with its claim to timelessness. Even if it took place in the year 3010 AD, it'd still be the same.
I love the way the adults on the newscasts and police speak, and the way the police officer at the end of the movie scolds the Capulets and Montagues, and the beginning scene, with the Montague nerds biting their thumbs at the Capulets was amusing.
The guy who plays Mercutio (I think he also plays Link in the Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions) is spellbinding, and John Leguizamo is equally spectacular in this movie.
What keeps this movie from a 9 or a 10 in my opinion is the two lead characters played abysmally by Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes. DiCaprio, normally a great actor, sounds like he's just memorized the lines and is reciting them like a schoolchild forced to read them aloud in class--lifeless, with little to no emotion, and an apparent lack of understanding as to what he is saying.
Claire Danes is even worse, delivering lines in such an awkward manner as to make me cringe. It sounds literally like a giggly, bubbly school girl reading from a script for the first time while distracted by something else.
Another thing which surprisingly irritated me was the SCREAMING. In many scenes, there was mindless screaming at the hands of Juliet's mother and maid, especially that scene where Romeo is at Juliet's window, and the maid calls for her, and Danes (awkwardly) says "By and by I come", the maid's line is literally *takes deep breath*:
JULIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET!
for at the very least, 5-10 seconds long
There's a lot more screaming at the maid's hand and Juliet's mother, though thankfully it's limited just to that scene and scarcely any other. But it is SERIOUSLY annoying having her scream like that when Juliet is CLEARLY shouting back "By and by I come"