Romeo + Juliet

Part 2 of Baz Luhrmann's Red Curtain Trilogy: 'Romeo + Juliet'.

I remember watching a little bit of this years and years back at high school and I seem to recall enjoying it a lot. I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I might've on this viewing, but it is still a film I'd recommend for sure - it's very good.

I'm yet to see a bad - heck, even a just mildly good - film from Leonardo DiCaprio, which remains the case after this. It's probably the weakest performance I've seen from DiCaprio so far, though that's just through process of elimination as he's still impressive here as Romeo. Claire Danes (Juliet) merits props, also.

John Leguizamo (Tybalt) is the pick of the rest of the cast, which also includes the likes of Paul Sorvino, ...

Shakespeare is still getting work in Hollywood, and probably always will...

... but I like updated modern Shakespeare when it comes in the form of West Side Story, She's all That, Overboard (all the other million or so Rom-Coms based off of The Taming of the Shrew) and not when the film is modern day with Shakespearean English and... yeah.

Too much of a Juxtaposition for me.

The kind of WWII update of Richard III wasn't bad, but it wasn't really taking Richard II, putting it in a different time, and keeping almost everything else intact.

I guess what I am saying is that it didn't mesh well for me.

Baz Luhrmann has relocated this classic to modern day Verona Beach and introduced a contemporary sound track to complement much of the original dialogue from the bard's story of true love, revenge and, quite possibly, the greatest tragedy ever written in the English language. The families "Montague" and "Capulet" have been feuding since God was a boy. The uneasy truce between them is to be severely tested when "Romeo" (Leonardo DiCaprio) and "Juliet" (Clare Danes) fall in love. Being from each of these warring tribes, they must keep their love clandestine in order to avoid conflict. As their affection grows, that secret proves harder and harder to keep - especially as "Juliet" has been betrothed and her father is determined that she shall b...