Romeo and Juliet

Or in other terms it is a fight that spans generations and was probably over nothing in the first place.

The movie shows a lot of the 90’s whilst relating to the old Shakespeare themes and ideas with present day scenery and technology i.e. all of the church scenes would be very similar to the original but on the streets during the fight scenes, the story and the scenery were modified without actually changing the words, for instance the name of the guns that the characters used were called swords so that in the middle of the gunfights they could say “I will smite you down with my sword!” which would let them keep the script without actually meaning to say that they would run you through with a blade.

 I guess that it has a main theme of street brutality in where it doesn’t matter where you are or what you’re doing if you see someone that you dislike; you have the right to just start shooting at them. Of course this is not accurate at all but when the play was written the feuding families sought to regain their honor and they were very rich, so in the end if anyone or anything was damaged, they would just pay for it but no actual jailing or punishments were used upon them. That is one example of exaggeration but it does show that there are some gang wars but not always this destructive unless premeditated and not just “Hey, are you talking to me? BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!”

The movie shows a lot of scenes that could have been related with the original for example; the fairground, the fancy-dress party and a lot of the older style mansions. This is portrayed very well in the movie because although it shows a lot of technology and modernisation, it still can take you to a time before the nineteen hundreds and the constants that bring us back are things like the media reports which are on television and newspapers.

In conclusion, the film shows a lot about life in the 90’s but always with a hint of Shakespeare’s era thrown into the mix. It is done quite well and the viewer can easily distinguish the old themes from the new and it has proven to be quite entertaining and unique with the way these themes are presented.