Romeo + Juliet
Reviews
r96sk
Part 2 of Baz Luhrmann's Red Curtain Trilogy: <em>'Romeo + Juliet'</em>. 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, Miriam Margolyes and Paul Rudd. Speaking of the casting, apparently 14-year-old Natalie Portman was originally cast to star alongside DiCaprio (then 21... dodgy!). I love the modern day set up and how they bring this famous tale to life in it, though I do think the choice to use Shakespearean dialogue was perhaps the wrong call. It's not like I didn't appreciate it, but it does feel a bit forced and unnatural at times - still cool that they did it, mind.
GenerationofSwine
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.
CinemaSerf
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 be in the church on Tuesday next! I'm sure you all know the story of the "star-crossed lovers" and I rather enjoyed this adaptation. Unlike "Carmen Jones" (1954) which I did not think worked well being relocated, this does. The eclectic contrast between the motor cars, the revolvers and the original old English text is quite effective. The effort from DiCaprio gets better as the film progresses and by the denouement neither he nor Danes are half bad. Harold Perrineau is also competent as the brave "Mercutio" and the conniving "Tybalt" is well covered by John Leguizamo. Purists may well not admire the abridging of this lengthy story though. It is quite heavily condensed and at times that does rob the film of much of the original nuance - not that Luhrmann ever really concentrates on nuance anyway - but I'd rather look on this as an evolution of the story for modern times rather than a straight retelling. For me it worked, and is watchable still.
Movie Recommendation
The Basketball Diaries1995-04-21A high school basketball player’s life turns upside down after free-falling into the harrowing world of drug addiction.More...
Total Eclipse1995-11-03Young, wild poet Arthur Rimbaud and his mentor Paul Verlaine engage in a fierce, forbidden romance while feeling the effects of a hellish artistic lifestyle.More...
The Man in the Iron Mask1998-03-12Years have passed since the Three Musketeers, Aramis, Athos and Porthos, have fought together with their friend, D'Artagnan. But with the tyrannical King Louis using his power to wreak havoc in the kingdom while his twin brother, Philippe, remains imprisoned, the Musketeers reunite to abduct Louis and replace him with Philippe.More...
Romeo and Juliet1968-04-02Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet fall in love against the wishes of their feuding families. Driven by their passion, the young lovers defy their destiny and elope, only to suffer the ultimate tragedy.More...
The Beach2000-02-03Twenty-something Richard travels to Thailand and finds himself in possession of a strange map. Rumours state that it leads to a solitary beach paradise, a tropical bliss - excited and intrigued, he sets out to find it.More...
Marvin's Room1996-12-18A leukemia patient attempts to end a 20-year feud with her sister to get her bone marrow.More...
What's Eating Gilbert Grape1993-12-17Gilbert Grape is a small-town young man with a lot of responsibility. Chief among his concerns are his mother, who is so overweight that she can't leave the house, and his mentally impaired younger brother, Arnie, who has a knack for finding trouble. Settled into a job at a grocery store and an ongoing affair with local woman Betty Carver, Gilbert finally has his life shaken up by the free-spirited Becky.More...
Romeo & Juliet2013-09-12In Verona, bad blood between the Montague and Capulet families leads to much bitterness. Despite the hostility, Romeo Montague manages an invitation to a masked ball at the estate of the Capulets and meets Juliet, their daughter. The two are instantly smitten but dismayed to learn that their families are enemies. Romeo and Juliet figure out a way to pursue their romance, but Romeo is banished for his part in the slaying of Juliet's cousin, Tybalt.More...
Titanic1997-11-18101-year-old Rose DeWitt Bukater tells the story of her life aboard the Titanic, 84 years later. A young Rose boards the ship with her mother and fiancé. Meanwhile, Jack Dawson and Fabrizio De Rossi win third-class tickets aboard the ship. Rose tells the whole story from Titanic's departure through to its death—on its first and last voyage—on April 15, 1912.More...
Revolutionary Road2008-12-19A young couple living in a Connecticut suburb during the mid-1950s struggle to come to terms with their personal problems while trying to raise their two children. Based on a novel by Richard Yates.More...
Moulin Rouge!2001-05-18A celebration of love and creative inspiration takes place in the infamous, gaudy and glamorous Parisian nightclub, at the cusp of the 20th century. A young poet, who is plunged into the heady world of Moulin Rouge, begins a passionate affair with the club's most notorious and beautiful star.More...
The Great Gatsby2013-05-09An adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's Long Island-set novel, where Midwesterner Nick Carraway is lured into the lavish world of his neighbor, Jay Gatsby. Soon enough, however, Carraway will see through the cracks of Gatsby's nouveau riche existence, where obsession, madness, and tragedy await.More...
The Quick and the Dead1995-02-09A mysterious woman comes to compete in a quick-draw elimination tournament, in a town taken over by a notorious gunman.More...
Australia2008-11-18Set in northern Australia before World War II, an English aristocrat who inherits a sprawling ranch reluctantly pacts with a stock-man in order to protect her new property from a takeover plot. As the pair drive 2,000 head of cattle over unforgiving landscape, they experience the bombing of Darwin by Japanese forces firsthand.More...
This Boy's Life1993-04-09When a son and mother move to Seattle in hopes for a better life, the mother meets a seemingly polite man. Things go south when the man turns out to be abusive, endangering their lives. As the mother struggles to maintain hope in an impossible situation, the son has plans to escape.More...
Hamlet1996-12-25Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, returns home to find his father murdered and his mother now marrying the murderer... his uncle. Meanwhile, war is brewing.More...
Rugrats in Paris: The Movie2000-11-17A group of rambunctious toddlers travel a trip to Paris. As they journey from the Eiffel Tower to Notre Dame, they learn new lessons about trust, loyalty and love.More...
Romeo and Juliet, From Hate to Love2001-07-13French musical created by Gérard Presgurvic and produced in 2001, at the Paris Convention Center. It is inspired by William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.More...
Shakespeare in Love1998-12-11Young Shakespeare is forced to stage his latest comedy, "Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter," before it's even written. When a lovely noblewoman auditions for a role, they fall into forbidden love -- and his play finds a new life (and title). As their relationship progresses, Shakespeare's comedy soon transforms into tragedy.More...
Space Jam1996-11-15With their freedom on the line, the Looney Tunes seek the help of NBA superstar Michael Jordan to win a basketball game against a team of moronic aliens.More...
Similar Movies
The Cook, the Thief, ...
1989-10-13The wife of an abusive criminal finds solace in the arms of a kind regular guest in her husband's restaurant.The Harder They Come
1972-09-01Ivanhoe Martin arrives in Kingston, Jamaica, looking for work and, after some initial struggles, lands a recording contract as a reggae singer. He records his first song, "The Harder They Come," but after a bitter dispute with a manipulative producer named Hilton, soon finds himself resorting to petty crime in order to pay the bills. He deals marijuana, kills some abusive cops and earns local folk hero status. Meanwhile, his record is topping the charts.The Match Factory Gir...
1990-01-12Iris is a shy and dowdy young woman stuck in a dead-end job at a match factory, who dreams of finding love at the local dancehall. Finding herself pregnant after a one-night stand and abandoned by the father, Iris finally decides the time has come to get even and she begins to plot her revenge.Siberia
2018-07-13Lucas, a diamond trader who travels to Saint Petersburg to arrange a sale, discovers that his Russian business partner has left his hotel and gone to a small Siberian village, so Lucas also heads there to try find him.Cid
1974-01-01There is no descriptionThe Moth and the Flam...
1915-05-13A bride who discovers during her wedding ceremony that her husband-to-be has fathered a child out of wedlock with another woman.Feathers
2021-06-23A passive mother who dedicates her life to her husband and children. Stuck in daily, repetitive, mundane chores, she has made herself as little as she possibly could. When a magic trick goes wrong at her 4-year-old son's birthday party, an avalanche of coincidental absurdities befalls the family. The magician turns her husband, the authoritarian father, into a chicken. The mother is now forced to come to the fore and take care of the family while moving heaven and earth to bring her husband back. As she tries to survive, she goes through a rough and absurd transformation.Offseason
2022-03-11Upon receiving a mysterious letter that her mother's grave has been vandalized, Marie travels to the desolate island town where she's buried. Just as she arrives, the island closes for the season, leaving Marie trapped in a nightmare.The Wars of the Roses...
1965-04-08A 1965 BBC adaptation of William Shakespeare's first historical tetralogy (1 Henry VI, 2 Henry VI, 3 Henry VI and Richard III), which deals with the conflict between the House of Lancaster and the House of York over the throne of England, a conflict known as the Wars of the Roses. It was based on the 1963 theatre adaptation by John Barton, and directed by Peter Hall for the Royal Shakespeare Company.The Naked Man
1998-08-02A man takes matters into his own hands when a pharmaceutical kingpin moves into his town to cause some real trouble.Turtles Can Fly
2005-01-07Turtles Can Fly tells the story of a group of young children near the Turkey-Iraq border. They clean up mines and wait for the Saddam regime to fall.Love Never to End
2007-01-13He is Kikuji Murao (Etsushi Toyokawa), a former best-selling novelist who has had a decade-long dry spell that has reduced him to university teaching and magazine hackery. After divorcing his wife (Reiko Takashima) and leaving behind his teenage daughter (Shihori Kanjiya), he meets Fuyuka Irie (Shinobu Terajima), a housewife and mother of three who is a longtime fan.Love Child
No data for this movieA woman is stuck in a loveless marriage to a brutish husband, but when a handsome vagabond stranger appears, her precocious 11-year-old hatches a plan to get rid of his father so that his mother can marry him instead. But things end up backfiring, so he comes up with yet another plan, this one even more devious, with more disastrous and unexpected consequences.The Reader
2008-12-10The story of Michael Berg, a German lawyer who, as a teenager in the late 1950s, had an affair with an older woman, Hanna, who then disappeared only to resurface years later as one of the defendants in a war crimes trial stemming from her actions as a concentration camp guard late in the war. He alone realizes that Hanna is illiterate and may be concealing that fact at the expense of her freedom.21
2008-03-27Ben Campbell is a young, highly intelligent student at M.I.T. who strives to succeed. Wanting a scholarship to transfer to Harvard School of Medicine to become a doctor, Ben learns that he cannot afford the $300,000 tuition as he comes from a poor, working-class background. But one evening, Ben is introduced by his unorthodox math professor to a small but secretive club of five students, Jill, Choi, Kianna, and Fisher, who are being trained by Professor Rosa to count cards at blackjack.A Life Less Ordinary
1997-10-24A couple of angels, O'Reilly and Jackson, are sent to Earth to make sure that their next supervised love-connection succeeds. They follow Celine, a spoiled rich girl who has just accidentally shot a suitor and, due to a misunderstanding, is kidnapped by janitor Robert. Although Celine quickly frees herself, she stays with Robert for thrills. O'Reilly and Jackson pursue, hoping to unite the prospective lovers.Rocco and His Brother...
1960-10-07When a impoverished widow’s family moves to the big city, two of her five sons become romantic rivals with deadly results.1st of May: All Belon...
2008-02-08An eleven-year-old Turkish boy, two young men from a small town, and a cuckolded policeman from the sticks all find their way to Berlin on May Day, where, in the district of Kreuzberg, emotions come to the boil every year.What Have I Done to D...
1984-10-25A henpecked housewife ekes out a meager existence, surrounded by a host of colorful characters: her ungrateful husband, her delinquent sons, her headstrong mother-in-law, and her sex worker neighbor, among others.Kika
1993-10-29When American author Nicholas brings in a cosmetologist named Kika to prepare the corpse of his recently deceased son, she inadvertently revives the young man, then falls in love with him. Forces conspire against the couple, though, as Nicholas wants Kika for himself.