Yes, it's definitely a drug trip. It's Baz Lurmann's signature style. It's impossible to watch his films and remain unaware of his fingerprints. Barraging the senses and trying to overwhelm his audiences with his incessant quirkiness is his schtick. It isn't just him who seems to be on a high. Half of the actors look like they've been drugged up out of their minds. Mercutio, Benvolio, and Tybalt in particular come to mind.
If you don't know Baz Lurmann's signature style, here's a rundown of his tropes: Everything must be over-the-top, to the point of absurdity; everything is seizure-inducing colorful; the editing must be so fast-paced that it obliterates the viewer's attention span; the product must deliver a sensory overload. This is also Baz when he was first starting out, and he hadn't mastered his style yet. This is probably the least Bazzy of his films, which isn't saying much, because it's still unlike anyone else's style, but he hadn't quite perfected his art into Oscar-nominated craziness. Later on, he would go on to make Moulin Rouge! and The Great Gatsby, which sped up the editing and reduced the average shot length to less than a second, which simultaneously made them worse and better movies.
His style, when brought to this classic Shakespearean play, is surreal. It's basically like he knew what Romeo and Juliet is supposed to be and made an adaptation that was the most opposite of it as possible. The one thing that he does keep, incidentally, is the original Shakespearean dialogue, but I guess it suits his purposes, since what's more eccentric and bizarre than a bunch of gangsters and thugs speaking in Shakespearean Enlgish? The whole point is that it's supposed to be weird, make no sense, and be kind of hipster before hipsters were a thing. I can actually see the pitch being pulled off, because I have seen actors talented enough to make Shakespeare sound natural. However, Lurmann's cast, as talented as they are, aren't really trying. They make it blatantly obvious that they're only reciting lines, and they don't make the slightest attempt to make it sound natural. Everything everyone says sounds like a recitation, and has no emotion to it, except for when scenes call for dramatic over-acting. I guess this fits with the style of the movie, but I don't get how some teachers think that this will make the play easier to follow. It really doesn't.
Although it makes me cringe at many points, it's often enjoyable. The one thing that I absolutely, really don't like is the casting of Claire Danes as Juliet. I have always loved Claire Danes. I saw her in several roles when I was young, never realizing that they all belonged to the same actress, and loved her in each of those roles. She's the best thing about Terminator 3. She played the titular character in Temple Grandin and rightfully won an Emmy. I love Claire Danes. Is she good enough to play Juliet? Of course she is. She's talented, and she's also enchantingly beautiful enough for people to make it rathehr believable that a dreamy boy could instantly go heads-over-heels for her. However, she was sixteen at the time, and I feel very uncomfortable when Leonerdo DiCaprio (who of course was a perfect fit for Romeo at this point in his life) romances her. He was twenty-six years old. Does that sound a little creepy to you? Either they should have cast someone younger than Leonardo, or cast someone older than Claire. Of the two actors, I think that Leonardo is less dispensable, so it's Claire who shouldn't have been in this film. However, I can at least appreciate that it could have been worse. Lurmann almost cast a fourteen-year-old Natalie Portman in that role. When I did a quick google search to see just how young she looked at fourteen, the corner of my eye twitched. Young. Good thing that didn't happen.
The most inspired casting, in my opinion, was a young Paul Rudd as Paris. He's an incredibly likable guy. Personally, I thought that he was more likable than Leonardo DiCaprio. The idea of making Paris a really great person that Juliet was too stupid to see favorably is a cool one, especially since it enhances the tragic nature of Romeo and Juliet's love. I prefer to read Romeo and Juliet as though the parents were the main characters, or Friar Lawrence, and that the play is about how the puppy love between the titular characters affects them. It would also be nice to focus a bit on how it affected Paris. Unfortunately, although the director made Paris an endearing person by virtue of casting Paul Rudd in the role, most of Paris's parts from the play got edited out, so there's never a moment when Paris goes to Juliet's grave, or where Romeo acknowledges, upon Paris' death, that Paris was a good man and an equal. I would have liked that.
The ending is still pretty good, though. The one thing that most people I know seem to agree that it did better than the play was the final death scene. It's no spoiler to say that Romeo and Juliet commit suicide in the last scene. In case someone hasn't seen the movie, though, I won't spoil the twist that Lurmann added to said scene, but I do think that it's a cool twist that improves the scene.
Overall, I've asked many high school students what they think of the movie, and they say that they prefer the play better. This is just too weird for them, and it's even harder to follow the lines due the mechanical delivery. Is it kind of fun to watch? Yes, but it isn't a good teaching tool. The emphasis is on the zaniness of Baz Lurmann's directing, not the story or the actors. The people who are going to get the most out of Romeo + Juliet are those who like to drop the Baz every once and a while and indulge themselves in his works as a guilty pleasure. I don't think that anybody thinks that every film should be directed by him, but some appreciate it when there's an occasional Baztastrophe to check out, for a change of pace.
His style, when brought to this classic Shakespearean play, is surreal. It's basically like he knew what Romeo and Juliet is supposed to be and made an adaptation that was the most opposite of it as possible. The one thing that he does keep, incidentally, is the original Shakespearean dialogue, but I guess it suits his purposes, since what's more eccentric and bizarre than a bunch of gangsters and thugs speaking in Shakespearean Enlgish? The whole point is that it's supposed to be weird, make no sense, and be kind of hipster before hipsters were a thing. I can actually see the pitch being pulled off, because I have seen actors talented enough to make Shakespeare sound natural. However, Lurmann's cast, as talented as they are, aren't really trying. They make it blatantly obvious that they're only reciting lines, and they don't make the slightest attempt to make it sound natural. Everything everyone says sounds like a recitation, and has no emotion to it, except for when scenes call for dramatic over-acting. I guess this fits with the style of the movie, but I don't get how some teachers think that this will make the play easier to follow. It really doesn't.
Although it makes me cringe at many points, it's often enjoyable. The one thing that I absolutely, really don't like is the casting of Claire Danes as Juliet. I have always loved Claire Danes. I saw her in several roles when I was young, never realizing that they all belonged to the same actress, and loved her in each of those roles. She's the best thing about Terminator 3. She played the titular character in Temple Grandin and rightfully won an Emmy. I love Claire Danes. Is she good enough to play Juliet? Of course she is. She's talented, and she's also enchantingly beautiful enough for people to make it rathehr believable that a dreamy boy could instantly go heads-over-heels for her. However, she was sixteen at the time, and I feel very uncomfortable when Leonerdo DiCaprio (who of course was a perfect fit for Romeo at this point in his life) romances her. He was twenty-six years old. Does that sound a little creepy to you? Either they should have cast someone younger than Leonardo, or cast someone older than Claire. Of the two actors, I think that Leonardo is less dispensable, so it's Claire who shouldn't have been in this film. However, I can at least appreciate that it could have been worse. Lurmann almost cast a fourteen-year-old Natalie Portman in that role. When I did a quick google search to see just how young she looked at fourteen, the corner of my eye twitched. Young. Good thing that didn't happen.
The most inspired casting, in my opinion, was a young Paul Rudd as Paris. He's an incredibly likable guy. Personally, I thought that he was more likable than Leonardo DiCaprio. The idea of making Paris a really great person that Juliet was too stupid to see favorably is a cool one, especially since it enhances the tragic nature of Romeo and Juliet's love. I prefer to read Romeo and Juliet as though the parents were the main characters, or Friar Lawrence, and that the play is about how the puppy love between the titular characters affects them. It would also be nice to focus a bit on how it affected Paris. Unfortunately, although the director made Paris an endearing person by virtue of casting Paul Rudd in the role, most of Paris's parts from the play got edited out, so there's never a moment when Paris goes to Juliet's grave, or where Romeo acknowledges, upon Paris' death, that Paris was a good man and an equal. I would have liked that.
The ending is still pretty good, though. The one thing that most people I know seem to agree that it did better than the play was the final death scene. It's no spoiler to say that Romeo and Juliet commit suicide in the last scene. In case someone hasn't seen the movie, though, I won't spoil the twist that Lurmann added to said scene, but I do think that it's a cool twist that improves the scene.
Overall, I've asked many high school students what they think of the movie, and they say that they prefer the play better. This is just too weird for them, and it's even harder to follow the lines due the mechanical delivery. Is it kind of fun to watch? Yes, but it isn't a good teaching tool. The emphasis is on the zaniness of Baz Lurmann's directing, not the story or the actors. The people who are going to get the most out of Romeo + Juliet are those who like to drop the Baz every once and a while and indulge themselves in his works as a guilty pleasure. I don't think that anybody thinks that every film should be directed by him, but some appreciate it when there's an occasional Baztastrophe to check out, for a change of pace.
As a side note, I was initially going to start off this review in a completely different way by talking about the Alien movies. If that franchise had continued to make movies following the downward trend of Alien: Resurrection, tell me that Alien 5 wouldn't have looked something like this film. The only way to get more absurd than an Alien movie with a Joss Whedon script is an Alien movie directed by Baz Lurmann. Now that the thought has crossed my mind, I actually kind of want to see it happen, even though the existence of such a film would offend me.
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