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List Price: $19.98 | | Label: 20th Century Fox
Salesrank: 17646
Released: March 12, 2002 |
| Our Price: $37.90 |
| Used Price: $7.00 |
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MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Baz Luhrmann's dazzling and unconventional adaptation of William Shakespear's classic love story is spellbinding. Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes portray Romeo and Juliet, the youthful star-crossed lovers of the past. But the setting has been moved from it's Elizabethan origins to the futuristic urban backdrop of Verona Beach.
Description of William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet (Special Edition):
Baz Luhrmann (Strictly Ballroom) takes a shot at reinventing Shakespeare's story of star-crossed lovers as a visual pastiche inspired by MTV imagery, Hong Kong action-picture clichés, and Luhrmann's own taste for deliberate, gaudy excess. The result is explosive chaos, both in terms of bullets and visual sensibility, which some may find impossible to stick with for more than a few minutes. Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes play the leads, though not with much distinction, while Pete Postlethwaite makes a huge impression as this movie's version of Friar Laurence. The film is successful in spots, but overall its fever-dream game plan is difficult to ride out. --Tom Keogh
William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet (Special Edition) Reviews:
Sorry, but its a crappy movie 
2009-10-22 - The acting:good, but..the movie is just horrible. I can't believe my english teacher from last year would show this when we were doing Romeo and Juliet. anyway, it is a bad movie in my opinion.thats all i got to say.END-
Dramatic Modernization of a Classic Art 
2009-09-14 - Capulet versus Montague the struggle passed down and retold for centuries , in place of swords we find guns, words remain nearly identical. This is a piece of art at an exhilarating rate full of edgy scenes, eclipsed comedy, and camera work worthy of something odd but unique to itself. Fan of Romeo and Juliet or not there is much here to be appreciated.
Were you one to enjoy the plays? One to take in the shoe taps on a wooden stage and the constant pace of it all? The artistic freedom of liveliness and the reverberations of soft spoken voices thirst warmth into the darkest corners of the audience look about. It's all here in a different sense, no stage though a tight wrapped location. Actively alert acting, quick shot responses give life to a normally lifeless adaptation.
The story of supposed star crossed lovers has never been so well preserved by modernizing it adapts making it as much current as that of the original back in its day. Though much the tragedy has been spared for much later bouts of the film, it is not sparse on popping visuals and creative thinking to help this remain at a contemporary stand point for ages to come. Maybe when cars have all but disappeared, and guns are not our standard weapon will we need another remake.
Modern retelling of a classic 
2009-08-13 - Modern actors replay the script of Shakespeare's immortal play. Set in a modern time, Romeo (DiCaprio) lives in a world where battle and killing is done with guns.
Love having my own updated R&J CD of Luhrmann's Version
2009-07-28 - Had an old video cassette recording of this updated "Romeo-Juliet" film, which I use to teach my 9th grade English classes for the required curriculum, but the old tape wore out and skipped and blipped, so I recently ordered the new CD, at a most reasonable price (which I can deduct for income taxes for school supplies I pay for myself yearly), and it arrived on a timely basis, in brand-new seal-wrapped conditon. Already showed it last week at the end of my summer school English 9 classes and it was fab, as always. I like the original Zefferelli (sic?) version, but love this one, too, with Leonardo, Claire, John, and the incredible actors playing Mercutio and Prince Escalus. I NEVER before really understood Mercutio's "Queen Mab" soliloquy until I saw this modern version and then it all hit me like a "crystal bullet to the brain" (was that Marlon speaking in "Apocalypse"? -- Did I get that quote right?). Anyhow, thanks, Amazon, for your always timely and affordable service, particularly where teachers are concerned. I'm your biggest fan! DeLana Beagle (:
Two households, both alike in stupidity. . .
2009-07-11 - This was unforgivable.
Granted, I did not watch this movie of my own volition, but was shown it in my college classroom. I did not manage to sit through the movie in its entirety; that is how badly it upset me.
While I'll admit that watching Romeo almost be picked off by a sniper assuages some of my deep-seated feelings of hatred for the character, the modernization as a whole didn't do it for me. Of course, I don't like "Romeo and Juliet" the play as a matter of principle: when you're 13 or 14 years old and haven't known each other a day, you're not in love. Period. It's just supercharged lust fueled by raging hormones. I wanted to laugh and cry both at once when Prince's "When Doves Cry" came on. The music is everywhere, invasive, and manipulative. Also, acting advice: Claire Danes, you make *very* ugly sounds when you (pretend to) cry. And yes, I can tell you're pretending, because even *I* am a better actress than that.
"Romeo + Juliet," besides being modernized, also blends different types of music (from Mozart to Prince) indiscriminately. That combined with Luhrmann's tendency to change camera angles every three seconds would have made me sick enough, but the very end--when Romeo and Juliet both had killed themselves--ah, that nearly drove me mad. Not only does "Juliet" (Claire Danes--WTF?) shoot herself in the head instead of stabbing herself in the heart, but the *music* that comes on right after is the Verklarung--the transfiguration music from the end of Richard Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde." That music is exceedingly poorly placed (it isn't about love at all, or suicide, or. . .), and it does not *belong* in so terrible a production as this. I'm still upset about it, but I've recovered. At least, I can use my legs again, have stopped crying and no longer feel the need to throw up.
I fully realize that the review above resembles nothing so much as a rant, but this movie absolutely deserves it. Though I don't much like the play, it deserves better than this. As does Shakespeare. Fortunately, I was not forced to buy this, though admittedly the catharsis I would have gotten from destroying the disc would have been considerable.
