The Best Modern Day Shakespeare Adaptation.

Rating: 10/10 (19 February 2015)

Flamboyant and overly-fashionable director, Baz Luhrmann's breakout film has become a sensation in the world of romance and Shakespeare. He casts some recognizable stars with young upstarts that would dominate the screen for years to come. Luhrmann brings the timeless story to the present in such a way that has some people loving it and others hating it.
Taking place in the present, everybody are surfers/punks. It is cool to see Shakespeare being to hip and cool. The guns, cars, music, and costumes really appeal to this generation's teen.
Romeo & Juliet is probably the best known Elizabethan play as well as the best known love story ever told. For those that don't know the plot, Romeo Montague's (DiCaprio) and Juliet Capulet's (Danes) families have always had violent feuds in Verona, Italy. As young teenagers, they meet, fall in love, get married, then kill themselves because each think the other is dead after they wake up with convincing evidence--all over a three day period. People that don't like the story hate how young they are, how quickly they get married, and how easily they commit suicide. First of all, the play is 500 years old. Second of all, that is what Shakespeare wanted people to think about. Kids their age and younger always say they are in love and they want to get married. Don't go saying they are too young to fall in love and get married when that thought crossed your mind! As for the suicide, it fits. Dying to be be with the person you love is the most romantic thing of all. I can't help but feel heartbroken when they die. Aside from that, their deaths were the only way for the Montagues and Capulets to restore peace among themselves and all of Verona. When I first read this play and studied it in high school, I was one of the only people that liked the ending because I thought it just "fit." I had no idea why for the longest time. Now I know.
Romeo is regarded as one of DiCaprio's best known roles, but not one of his best-known performances. I would easily say it is in his top five. Everybody else in this is not quite as well known as Leo, but they shine in this and in their other movies. Most of the criticism I've seen from this are from the performances themselves. They say everybody has no idea how to act Elizabethan or how to deliver Shakespeare lines. Roger Ebert said Pete Postelthwaite was the only exception because he was the one that knew how to deliver the lines. Sure he is a talented actor, but nothing is entirely wrong with the performances. The actors talked as if they were thinking it, not with a rhythm. Sir Laurence Olivier was the first actor to break the rule of Shakespeare being rhythmic and natural. So the acting really isn't bad. People were just unused to seeing these Hollywood giants saying things they can't understand.
4/4