Nonureva Really Surprised!

Sexylocher Masterful Movie

ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.

TaryBiggBall It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

stancym-1 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.

irtd-28740 Awesome and heart touching movie I've ever watched. Great true love story just end sadly. Such good acting, especially from Romeo and Juliet. They fail in this real world but win and get united for ever at heavens with peace. I am so inspired of this love story. I'd definitely recommend this movie!

Desertman84 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.

jandesimpson Of all the clever-clever barbs fired at the 2013 "Romeo and Juliet", "Shakespeare for Dummies" has probably given the film's detractors the most satisfaction. But, as anyone who has read my user reviews of the 1940 "Pride and Prejudice" and the 1999 "Mansfield Park" will quickly realise, I am no purist as far as literary adaptations for cinema are concerned. I suppose therefore I must be something of a dummy, but a dummy who would like to take the floor to confess to finding this recent version of literature's most famous youth-love-death cocktail rather wonderful. Not that it hasn't been well done before. I haven't seen Castellani's but Zefirelli's later version was a thoroughly worthy attempt, certainly of a standard to raise a question as to whether further interpretations were needed. I experienced serious unease fuelled by all those truly awful reviews before even the opening credits. Give it half an hour perhaps. Not that it started particularly well. A horseback contest between a Montague and Capulet reminded that we might well be entering "Ben Hur" country with all the boredom of that gargantuan epic. I suppose it was the entry of Douglas Booth's Romeo chipping away at a stone figure of Rosaline, his current love, in an artist's workshop that raised more than a glimmer of interest. Was ever a portrayer of the role more handsome! And this coming from a pretty 'straight' viewer! Just imagine his effect on all those Juliets in the audience! I have to admit to finding him the more engaging partner, hardly matched by a no more than pretty Juliet, who rather gabbles her lines and is, well, little more than average school dramatic society material. By now I am aware that I am hardly writing a review of something of a terrific film, so what makes it so outstanding? It can be summed up in the one word - passion. This version concentrates on the lovers to the exclusion of much else such as the groundings humour of Mercutio here played absolutely seriously as is Lesley Manville's pragmatically intelligent Nurse. For once,in Paul Giametti's outstanding portrayal, we can really feel the tragedy of Friar Lawrence's ghastly misguided solution to saving the young lovers which serves to drive the action forward to those tragic deaths presented with such moving intensity. It all culminates in a truly great moment when the young Benvolio clasps the dead lovers hands together. Not Shakespeare but nevertheless a masterstroke. As a bonus we are treated to beautifully shot locations. At one point where the lovers depart from one another on a riverbank the image is ravishing. The main quarrel of its detractors seems to be copious liberties with the playwright's text. There is no question but this is an adaptation in the same way as Kurosawa's "Throne of Blood" and "Ran" both of which are reverenced by cineastes yet contain not a line of Shakespeare. Why all the furious reactions to this version? Remembering the derision than was heaped against Powell and Pressburger's marvellous "Gone to Earth" when it first appeared in the early 1950's but has now achieved deserved recognition, I put it that Carlo's Carlei's "Romeo and Juliet" is possibly a film before its time. Sadly I shall not be around in a few decade's time to say, "I told you so."