Romeo and Juliet

Everybody's heard of Romeo and Juliet. But this adaption of The Bard's most famous work has been set in the 90's and unlike West Side Story, this version (is good - oops sorry!) keeps the original text. Baz Luhrmann (best known for Strictly Ballroom) strikes the audience with a powerful blow of MTV style imagery thrusting you into the back of your seat faster than a speeding bullet. The opening conflict utilises comedy, violence and modern imagery in a combination the bard himself would have been proud of. The combination of strong imagery and innuendo's carried by his Shakespeare's masterpiece are often lost in modern adaptions as the audience doesn't understand in-jokes of the time. This film makes those puns and innuendo's visual jokes and uses almost slapstick comedy which brings Shakespeare to a new audience with a full understanding and not a word changed.

Verona becomes Verona Beach, the swords are replaced by guns, and a Rapier for those astute enough to notice, rather than being a sword in the original text, is now a brand name of a gun. Also, and I must confess to missing this completely as I am no big Prince (or The Artist Formerly .......yeah yeah!) fan, the film has been set in a time when Prince songs are sung as Hymn's. What better way to emphasise a society reduced to chaotic rivalry and degredation?

The two leads are magnificant. Leonardo Di Caprio (What's Eating Gilbert Grape) and Claire Danes (TV's My So Called Life) are so comfortable speaking the Bard's text, that you forget that you are actually watching Shakespeare rather than a modern love story. Then again the story is surely as strong today as it ever was as the rivalries spawned by love or war will always be central to strong storylines.

For those of you who have been locked in the cellar for the whole of your life, Romeo and Juliet is a tragic love story set in Verona, where a boy and a girl fall in love with their parent's bitter rivals. They are of course the only children of the two warring factions, the Capulets and the Montegues, but can not let this stop them from falling in love. The two of them are seperated after getting married in secret only to then kill themselves because they can't be together. There we go, William Shakespeare's greatest work reduced to three lines of drivel.

Reviewed by Joel Newman

FILM FACTS IN BRIEF
Directed by Baz Luhrmann.
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes.
Go to the official site for more information.