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Absolutely Fantastic

There are women in the film, but none has anything you could call a personality.

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Blistering performances.

It's good that Romeo and Juliet is a play that keeps getting redone so that new generations can appreciate it. The language is truly beautiful and the story eternally compelling and addictive. However, in spite of some good actors, sets, and scenery, this one is quite disappointing. I agree with other reviewers who mention that much of the original text has been either cut or rewritten to no good purpose. There is time for lots of kissing but that means sacrificing some of the best poetry in the world. And yes, I agree it is a problem when Romeo is more beautiful than Juliet. But my biggest complaint is that Hailee Steinfeld just is not up to the task of Juliet. I already knew her lines or I would not have followed most of them. Steinfeld swallows words, rushes words, mumbles words. Poetry is spoken too fast or thrown away as if the actress doesn't fully understand what she is saying. I rate it 4 stars instead of 3 because Paul Giamatti, Lesley Manville, Natasha McElhone and Damian Lewis handle the language with aplomb and perform well. Douglas Booth as Romeo is not exceptional but handles the language better than poor Miss Steinfeld does. Also I rate it 4 because visually, the film is quite beautiful.

Watching this film only gives only provides me more reasons to love the 1968 Romeo And Juliet film that starred Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey.This 2013 film adaptation is definitely a poor version of the William Shakeaspere tragic play of romance.Douglas Booth and Hailee Steinfeld,who stars as Romeo and Juliet respectively,simply lacks the passion,energy and realism as the star-crossed lovers of feuding Verona and Montague families. It was nothing to the performances of Whiting and Hussey. Too bad that the decent performances of the other stars or the so-called "adults" such as Damian Lewis,Kodi Smit-McPhee,Ed Westwick,Stellan Skarsgård and Paul Giamatti are not and will never be enough to compensate for the poor performances of the lead stars.What's worse,it also does not use the written dialogues of Shakespeare in it.Parts of it were only used.It only follows the plot of the play and the Verona setting.Nothing more.Too bad that people looking forward to this film felt cheated thus arising the controversy for false advertising.Or better yet,the film simply did not meet the standard for it lacks passion,romance,lyricism and eroticism expected from any Romeo And Juliet film.Truly disappointing.No question that the 1968 version remains the best film adaptation ever made.

Romeo and Juliet: the story of an impossible love and an incredible passion that made generations dream for centuries. The plot is well known by everyone: an ancient grudge divides two families of Verona, the Montagues and the Capulets. Young Romeo, heir of the Montagues, falls for the beautiful Juliet, daughter of the rival family. They marry in secret but the murder of Juliet's cousin Tybald by the hand of Romeo, leads to a series of events which will result in the tragic death of the two lovers, putting an end to the conflict between the two families.The question now is: was there really the need of another version of the Shakespearean love drama? The answer is, probably no.Whereas the most traditional version of Romeo and Juliet, namely Zeffirelli's, captures the real magic of two young, impatient lovers and the tragedy of their story, Carlei's version hardly seems to be achieving the same. Although Carlei obviously had Zeffirelli's version in mind, which is noticeable from the setting and on-shot locations, he lacks the power to make this film work properly.In my opinion the main issue concerns the casting of the two lovers: Romeo, interpreted by Douglas Booth, seems directly taken from an Abercrombie campaign. Juliet's role was given to Hailee Stainfeld, who looks like a cute but ordinary teenage girl and fails to convey the passion she feels for Romeo. The lack of chemistry and erotic energy between the two protagonists makes us focus our attention on other characters such as Friar Lawrence (Paul Giamatti) and the Nurse (Lesley Manville), whose good acting makes us sigh with relief. I also found the music quite distracting at times – as in the balcony scene, where it cuts through the lines (which are not well delivered in the first place). Were they trying to hide the bad acting? Had they kept the original dialogue, they wouldn't have needed such an intruding soundtrack, since Shakespeare's lines are poetic and musical in themselves.Moreover, the language chosen seems, to me, inadequate. Even though some of the original dialogue has been kept, it is often intertwined with bits and pieces of modern expressions. The result is a weird and indefinable language that sounds old but lacks poetry and musicality. Lines are shortened, dialogues are compressed; even the balcony scene, the most famous of the whole play, was not kept like the original. Instead the director added new and unnecessary scenes. We even see Rosaline at the party acting almost as if she were jealous of Romeo's interest for Juliet, which is a bit too close to a soap opera. Nevertheless, this oversimplification can be helpful for students who are not native speakers and who want to start approaching the play in a facilitated manner. In this case, the film can act as a stepping-stone, but is certainly not enough to appreciate the true Romeo and Juliet. The magic of Shakespeare's words is lost in this adaptation. Moreover, the umpteenth adaptation of Romeo and Juliet would need a new, innovative turn that would justify the spending of over 20 million dollars for something so predictable. After Zeffirelli's "classic" version of the drama, Luhrman did well and gave a new interpretation of Romeo and Juliet, changing the setting and incorporating modern elements, making us look at the story from a different perspective. Carlei on the other hand only produced a 21st century remake of Zeffirelli's film. Even though the costuming is impeccable and the locations breathtaking, there is no Romeo and Juliet without actors who succeed in conveying the passion, love and desire of the two protagonists.In conclusion, Carlei's adaptation becomes ineffective since it doesn't bring anything original to the story, limiting itself to a successful reconstruction of the scenography. The product is a film that could have worked if the director had given a personal imprint to the drama. Ultimately, unlike other versions such as Luhrman's (which can be appreciated or not), it lacks a soul. We waited 16 years for a new Romeo and Juliet to appear on screen, and I would have been happy to wait a little longer to see a different, fresh adaptation of the most famous love story of all times.

After watching this latest film adaptation of Romeo and Juliet the first question that came to mind was 'did we actually need another film adaptation of this play?'In my opinion the answer is no, that Baz Luhrmanns 1996 Romeo and Juliet was enough and captured this classic love story in a way that this 2013 adaptation could not do. This film was really unnecessary and doesn't make us think of the play in a different way. It almost does this magnificent play injustice. This film adaption displayed such a beautiful tragic love story in such a straightforward, dull manner. There was nothing captivating and interesting about this version at all and that was disappointing. In this adaptation Fellows rewrites the dialogue in an attempt to modernize Shakespeare's language. The film consists of both modern day English and Shakespearean English. This then results in a disjunct between the language and the setting as the director chose to set this play in a traditional old-fashioned way. His attempt at combining Shakespearean English with modern day English is shocking and quite difficult to watch. The setting of the play is almost magical though and this partially makes up for the unusual language arrangement. The film was shot in Verona, the original setting of the play. This makes the film more realistic to watch and not to mention how breathtaking and beautiful the scenes were. The costumes along with the setting are one of the few aspects of the film that I actually liked. The costumes are elegant, beautiful and quite elaborate allowing the characters to fit right in with the traditional setting. In my opinion there has been more far too much emphasis placed on the visual aspect of this film than the actual acting itself.If you ask me the director and casting crew made a huge mistake during the casting process as the actors playing Romeo and Juliet were not suited to their roles. There was a clear lack of chemistry between the two and that is devastating to watch as this film is supposed to tell one of the greatest love stories ever written. This lack of chemistry has a lot to do with the huge age difference between Douglas Booth (Romeo) and Halie Steinfeld (Juliet). During filming Halie Steinfeld was only fifteen while Douglas Booth was nineteen years old. This age gap can make the audience feel quite uncomfortable and slightly awkward as there are quite a few intimate scenes between the pair. Even though there are constant gazes exchanged between the two and endless close-ups of them together the chemistry is just not there and no amount of editing and camera work can fix that. I may seem harsh in my critique of this film but as this is one of my favourite plays I can't help but be very critical. This adaptation just didn't live up to my expectations of what a Romeo and Juliet film should be like. The poor casting and unusual language made the film hard to watch and overall I was quite disappointed. If it wasn't for the exceptionally beautiful setting and the elegant costumes which look as though they came straight from a fairytale then this film would be a complete disaster.