But Benvolio was good

Rating: Null/10 (8 July 2000)

I think we can see by Benvolio how the language was supposed to sound. Dash Mihok speaks it fluently, clearly, and un-selfconsciously as if it were the latest surfer slang. Well, maybe he was just lucky that he had none of the really hard lines.
I don't know who made the rule, but it seems to be compulsory for several years now that a movie has to end promptly as soon as the last person who's going to die has died. Zeffirelli omitted the reconciliation of the families, and Luhrmann seems to have had no patience for it either. But to Shakespeare it was important, the teachers always told us: there's always someone at the end of Shakespearean tragedy who picks up the pieces and reminds us that the nightmare is over and the world will go on.
On the other hand, the world of R+J will not. If I may state the obvious, Luhrmann did not move the play into the present. He moved it into an alternative present, and that's what allows various anachronisms (such as the peremptory banishment of Romeo) to pass without further explanation.