Almost watchable ... unfortunately, not quite

Rating: Null/10 (17 January 1999)

I saw a High School Theatre production of Romeo and Juliet a couple months ago, and was amazed how closely it came in entertainment value to Baz Luhrmann's on-screen adaptation.
Granted, this High School didn't make an attempt at modernization, but instead tried a production closer to what the bard was intended, but watching this I still came to a revelation; it's not the attempt to bring the classic play into the 90's that sinks this film, but instead, the sophomoric, high-school quality acting.
In this production, the male and female leads were actually pretty good, and had a feel for the dialogue. I was reminded of Danes and DiCaprio, who knew what they were doing, and made every scene that they had together work very well. Unfortunately, they eventually got sunk by the actors surrounding them, whose idea of emotional Shakespeare is to scream their lines as loudly as possible.
It's almost a shame that Miriam Margoyles (Juliet's Nurse) and Pete Postlethwaite (The Friar) are in this movie; they remind us what good Shakespeare is supposed to sound like. And their all-too-brief scenes raise the bar for the rest of the actors, who, unfortunately, fall very short.
It's not the direction or attempts at modernization which eventually sinks this movie, but instead the lack of support for Danes, DiCaprio, Margoyles, and Postlethwaite, which lowers Lurhmann's production to the level of a High School play. It's almost watchable, if you let yourself sink into the concept, but not to the standards of what a good movie (let alone good Shakespeare) should be.