it's not a terrible movie, it's just..... huh?

Rating: 5/10 (14 January 2009)

I remember seeing Romeo + Juliet in a high school English class... or at least I'd like to pretend I did. If anything, I probably remember reading the actual play more, or maybe when they tried to do the comparison with Zeferelli's far superior 1968 version. Bored one day (very bored, though sadly not with the wherewithal to pick up a book like a more sane person), I saw Romeo + Juliet was on cable and stayed tuned to watch it. It's not as bad I've heard from some, which is that it's one of the worst films ever made. It's somehow weirdly watchable in some instances and shots and moments. Baz Lurhmann isn't a hack, that much is completely certain, he's got too much verve and POP in his style to be easily ignored. This is in fact what made Moulin Rouge, for better or worse, the significant achievement it was. But all the technical razzle dazzle in this case can't cover up the biggest problem of all: casting.
And I don't mean that in the sense of "oh, casting these hot young people of the 90s like Di Caprio and Claire Danes and, uh, John Leguizamo I guess", that notion is a given. Watching the film today, after years of knowing Romeo & Juliet and Shakespeare work in general, the actors with one or two exceptions can't pull off the performances. Lurhmann leaves these kids and other character players like Harold Pirenneau and even a strange walk-on like Paul Sorvino to fend for themselves. And as for the two stars, Di Caprio and Danes, they are pretty to look at, but the performances clearly don't have a kind of focus that's required with the material. Perhaps this is more than anything not so much a fault of the director's in that "oh, I'll cast them for this look and that", but of simple things like rehearsal. I can imagine Lurhmann taking so much time to prepare how to make Verona the Verona-on-speed of his world, the Capulets and Montagues in their power games and battles, all super-designed and made out in super 90s sheek with some 80s leftover.
So in short, there is a vision here, but its squandered when the human elements are left beside. Some bits are worthwhile, like Pete Posthlethwaie (sic) s the priest, but really the main attraction is to try and lure in mall kids who wouldn't go near the Bard with a ten foot pair of designer jeans under normal circumstances. It's shiny and goes fast and crazy, but there's not a lot of substance much... at all. That being said, it's fun to re-live some of the 90s music, as cheesy as it can get.