Shakespeare’s classic play of tragic love between members of opposing families.
Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: PG
Release Date: 12-DEC-2003
Media Type: DVDFranco Zeffirelli’s 1968 adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet was unique in its day for casting kids in the play’s pivotal roles of, well, kids. Seventeen-year-old Leonard Whiting and 15-year-old Olivia Hussey play the titular pair, the Bard’s star-crossed lovers who defy a running feud between their families in order to be together in love. Typically played on stage and in previous film productions by adult actors, the innocent look and rawness of Whiting and Hussey resonated at the time with a burgeoning youth movement from San Francisco to Prague. The tragic romance at the center of the story also clicked with anti-authority sentiments, but even without that, Zeffirelli scores points by validating the ideals and passions of strong-willed adolescents. Less successful are scenes requiring the actors to have a fuller grasp of the text, though the best thing going remains the unambiguous duel between Romeo and Tybalt (Michael York). Lavishly photographed by Pasquale de Santis on location in Italy, this Romeo and Juliet brought a different tone and dimension to a story that had become tiresome in reverential presentations. –Tom Keogh
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March 18, 2008
#1
The film looks great, the music is legendary, so why can’t I recommend this love story? I have two quibbles, and they are BIG ones: 1) For those who haven’t seen the film, the titular star-crossed lovers of this piece both commit suicide, and this is a bad message to be sending today’s youth. Would it not have made for a more happy and dramatic ending had the Capulets and the Montegues worked out their differences? My second knock is levelled against the film’s screenwriter. People talk REALLY weird in this movie and half the time I couldn’t figure out what they were saying!!! To sum up, this film is an incoherent and socially irresponsible mess!
March 18, 2008
#2
theres one real flaw in which this guy gets stabbed and every time the camera gets back on him the bloodstain is in a different place.romeo and juliette are from fueding families.they are forbidden to see eachother but do anyhow.they eventualy elope.they end up killing thierselves much later each thinking the other had perished.of course the man or myth william shakesspere wrote this one.its considered the greatest love story ever told.personaly i like mickey and mallorey knox better.i think the fact that they killed thierselves over eachother is repulsive.no chick would really do that since they are all so stuck on thierselves and the guy is an idiot too for chicks only love themselves.its emotional if you are.some of the chicks are ok in a 100 year old plus kind of way.im sure thier style made them real lookers at the time.another thing is their stupid parents need to chill out as do all parents.girls are going to grow up,get thier hormones raging and get down with a guy.get over it!its part of life!
March 18, 2008
#3
We all know the story of Romeo & Juliet, two young couples from the opposing families of Montague (Romeo’s Family) & Capulet (Juliet’s Family) fall in love after a party and then elope. And then when Juliet is forced by his father to marry another man she doesn’t love so she pretends (with a little help of a sleeping potion) she is dead and is taken to a Mosuluem where the plan is to have Romeo get her and run away. However the famous ending is that Romeo doesn’t know about her wife’s sleeping potion plot and goes to the moseluem anyway after finding out about her death. And not being able to live without his beloved he kills himself with poison. Juliet later wakes up and finds Romeo dead and for the same reason kills her self but with a self-inflicted stab wound. And then the two once opposing families make peace. Now thats a story in a nutshell which is pretty good. However the movie although with realistic setting & realistic looking cast (meaning they look like the original play said like they looked)just isn’t a good movie out of the great storyline. The scenes are cartonish and the jokes are hidden puns which takes incredible amounts of thinking to get it and see they aren’t even funny. The acting is a bit robotic and unreal. And the scenes are really boring-making me almost go to sleep. So basically the movie is too fake and not enough real drama to keep me enticed.
March 18, 2008
#4
this movie was just bad. several important scenes and speeches were left out, the actors overacted everything(esp.Romeo and Juliet). and there was no need for a 2 minute gratuitous shot of romeo’s butt
March 18, 2008
#5
GA