Nimal Carson

I am officially appalled at the lack of care for Shakespeare's great work. This scrappy, rushed excuse for a film strips all the emotional depth and intimacy of Shakespeare's play. Firstly I must discuss the acting. It feels like the actors are reading off a sheet in front of the camera, devoid of any humanism that these characters beg for. Most of the fight scenes are overdone and comical, prompting more of an unintentional comedy than a play. Leonardo di Caprio and Clare Dane's acting, while still quite sub-par, far outweighs any efforts of the other 'actors' in this saddeningly bad production. Secondly I will take a look at the visuals. Or should I say I would rather not take a look at the visuals. The production team for this film were clearly on a strict budget. The eye-wateringly grainy camera quality mixed with a confused grasp (or not so) on the speed of camera angle switching. Many a time was I left with no clue of what just happened on my screen due to the blurry and fast moving graphics. Just pathetic in general. Finally, I will look at the soundtrack. Oh god. Would have been better done by a three year old left with a computer and a script. I don't quite know what possessed these production crew(s) to put such disjointed and inappropriate music on the film. Jumping from an intimate love scene underscored by what should be old medieval music (lyre, flute, harp maybe) we hear a butchered children's choir followed by a gun-ho rock mashup better suited to Hot Fuzz than romeo and juliet. Total defamation to one of the best love stories ever written. In conclusion, this film adaptation of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" misses the mark like Romeo missing Juliet’s balcony on a foggy night after a few martinis. With performances so lackluster they could put a sloth to sleep, visuals that seem like they were designed by a toddler on a sugar high, and a soundtrack that sounds like it was assembled from a broken jukebox, it feels less like a celebration of love and more like a chaotic circus where the clowns forgot their lines. It’s truly disheartening to see such a classic reduced to a spectacle that leaves true fans of the play more heartbroken than Romeo when he found out he wasn’t going to get a sequel!