Movie Review "romeo+juliet"

"Romeo + Juliet" is surely not one of the greatest movie I've ever seen, but it still remains exciting, fresh and innovative from the start until the end. This up to date version of Shakespeare's more than four hundred years old play will surely please your senses, and it's perhaps the first time in history where one of Shakespeare's work is presented in a rejuvenating modern setting.

The movie is set on Verona Beach, FL, where two rival families named Capulet and Montague co-exists with the common hatred for each other. At a party in the Capulet's Mansion, both the children of the two families, Romeo and Juliet, meet and instantly fall in love madly with each other. They continue to share their love especially when they are kissing intensely in the pool (if you're a too young, you should skip that part), and arrange a secret marriage with Father Laurence. But a tragic event that causes the death of Mercutio and Tybalt forces Romeo on to an exile, and with Father Laurence's plan failing to make the two lovers reunite, it instead results in the death of the two as Romeo poisons himself and Juliet too afterwards commits suicide.

The casting is diversely well picked. Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes who play Romeo and Juliet do not show the top notch acting in the film, but both are extremely beautiful and their not so good acting actually contributes by making them match with the immature behavior of Romeo and Juliet themselves. While Harold Perrineau Jr. proofs to be a brilliant actor as he plays the difficult role as Mercutio with sheer flawlessness. Embodying the character with the balance of wittiness and bitterness that matches with the original Mercutio from the play.

There's much to say if the movie is compared to the original Romeo and Juliet play, or even to Zeffirelli's one. People who seek originality might not enjoy this movie at all, although the plot seems original but almost everything apart from that is converted to match with the modern setting. Such as that: cars replace horses, guns replace knifes and swords, and modern mail services replace personal couriers. I do must admit that all of those are clever, and that cleverness is what makes the movie exciting to watch. But no matter how much innovative ideas Luhrmann applies, the movie still lags behind in accomplishing one of the most important factors for making a successful adaptation of a Shakespearean play, and that is how proses are delivered. You can't expect a perfect Shakespearean play where the majority of the casts itself are not Shakespearean actors/actresses!

The camerawork and the rock music are both venerating and disorienting. The restless camerawork is inventive and unique. While the rock music is cool and "sexy", especially in the scene where the blooming sunset mesmerizes DiCaprio while he is smoking, as the song "Street Spirit"