Adam Porthouse
English media coursework
Rating: * *
Verdict: Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet given a bad make over.
The down under Ozzie director Baz Lurhrmann (Strictly Ballroom), has let us and Shakespeare down with his adaptation of Romeo & Juliet film. The guns, drugs and violence theme has left us thinking is that really a play wrote by Shakespeare?
It's about violence. It's about hate. And of course, it's about teenage first sight love and a slight bit of suicide. It was a massive let down even to today’s ‘gangster’ films, The Hollywood action shows nothing of what the film is about. The play based on the ‘star crossed lovers’, falling in love at first sight did not have shootouts and modern day ‘yobs’ fighting, if he was going to make the film this way he could of at least left it with some dignity. The masked ball was the only scene that amused me most with humorous Mercutio dancing dressed as a woman which was definitely the best part of the film, he is reinvented as a dreadlocked drag queen. The restless moving cameras and montages are an adrenaline rush and did work to show that the characters were on drugs (which I suggest taking before going to see this film) but a fine line should have been drawn to how fast, it left my head spinning, I had no idea what was going on. John Leguizamo plays a particularly effective Tybalt and really brings out the character in him which, well really cannot be said for most of the other characters. He showed what his character was meant to show, hot headed, evil and deceitful, I really liked him.
