Juliet & Romeo

I'm going to caveat everything I say below with the knowledge that I love a musical. Please bear that in mind as I delve into the new musical film Juliet & Romeo.

With that out of the way, I want to talk about the thrill of sitting down and watching a musical. For me, it's seeing a story told through the medium of song and dance, with catchy songs and memorable performances. With the exception of one song (which I will come back to), Juliet & Romeo fails to hit the mark on almost every musical moment.

The opening number is OK and fun, but its not until you get to the third or fourth song that you realise they all just sound exactly the same. The same beats, the same sound, everything. Back in 2017 when The Greatest Showman hit the cinema, I remember coming out feeling invigorated and singing the songs, but here everything is just boring. You could skip to anywhere in the soundtrack of Juliet & Romeo and not actually know where you were in the story, unlike the great musicals which mix up their song styles and make every number memorable.

The one standout song in the middle though is the one which takes a leap and tries to do something different. "I Should Write This Down", sung by the Apothecary (Dan Fogler) and to some extent the Friar (Derek Jacobi) is a real gem of a song sung with passion and fun. It's almost like something from a Lin Manuel-Miranda musical and it was this point in the film where I thought we were about to take a huge turn for the better....until the very next scene and the pop-style ballads kicked in again and I remembered that I was watching something very sub-par.

The leads do an alright job as Juliet (Clara Rugaard) and Romeo (Jamie Ward) and they do have some decent support around them from bigger names actors like Rebel Wilson, Jason Isaacs and Rupert Graves, but its a musical and unfortunately falls way short of what it needed to do.

I have to say though, the look and the visuals in the film are absolutely fantastic and credit goes where its due to the production design, but when you're looking for ways to give a film an extra star, it's thin pickings.

Was surprised how well they did with the music that they advertised as modern.

Jamie Ward as Romero and Clara Rugaard as Juliet give a very good performance as the title characters, with great show of emotions through their acting that added tot heir characters.

Seeing Rebel Wilson in a non-comedic role was something to get used to, but, she did a very good job with the Lady Capulet character

This is the classic story, very good acting and songs. The songs did the story justice and I am already looking to get a copy of the soundtrack.

The continual telling of Romeo and Juliet in different versions with different settings never gets old and this version continues that line of success with a twist I will not tell as it is something you will need to see.

If you enjoy Romeo and Juliet, I would highly reccomend this movie to you.

There are so, so many reasons this movie was a failure that to enumerate them would be an exercise in exhaustion. I think the most annoying part was also the most ridiculous: everyone talked in different accents, and sang in others. For example, Romeo and Juliet both use something like RP or a southern English accent, but Romeo's father uses a distinct Northern English brogue. Juliet's parents sound the same as her, for whatever reason. Other characters' accents are undeniably American, though we are supposed to believe they're all (or mostly) native residents of the same city. To confuse matters further, everyone sings in an American accent!

As for the rest, the music was poorly written and just as poorly produced, the script (all modern English) was practically phoned in, and the cinematography was amateurish. The worst offense, however, was a complete disregard for key character moments and interactions that lovers of Shakespeare cherish from the original play. Phrases and lines from the source text are haphazardly re-contextualized-and delivered so carelessly-that they lose their original power, poetry, and philosophical punch. After close to an hour of watching this joke of a production, I decided to revoke the rest of the time I had originally entrusted to the film (during the apothecary's song, if that matters). Maybe that undercuts the validity of my review, but I don't care. Enduring the rest of that awful movie isn't worth bolstering the arguments of an online review that hardly anyone will read.

In fairness, I liked the imagery of the musical scene where the main characters have parted ways from the church but are still together "in their hearts," or whatever, but ONLY on an aesthetic level, because everything else about that scene is creatively tragic.

Please save yourself the time- this is truly a mess. Abysmal. Can't decide what it wants to be. Inauthentic. I could go on. This doesn't even get close to explaining how unwatchable this film is. Who wanted HIGH SCHOOL MUSIC meets ROMEO AND JULIET? I can't begin to imagine.

The one star is for Derek Jacobi - how on earth did they ever get him? He is fun to watch even if the rest of the movie is complete swill.

I also think someone should explain to the people who made this film that no one is interested in this being a series (hopefully the box office numbers already made this decision for them).

There are some positives to this film: Costume design Scenery/staging Some of the cast - Derek Jacobi is a National Treasure, so we must assume that he was on holiday when his agent signed him up for this and you have to wonder how badly the Ruperts (Everett and Graves) needed the money but Jeremy Isaacs can have no excuse - he seems to be in everything these days.

But so much that is wrong (or downright bad) that it's difficult to know where to begin... The continuous intrusive music score - it's bad enough that it's there and I can't find words to stress the lie of "the greatest music of our time" (IMDb quote) but it's worse because cinemas turn the volume up so much. It is constant and drowns out much of the awful ...

Dialogue - trying desperately to hint back to Shakespeare and failing at every turn. There's even a moment when one of the cast says "oh wait" before delivering half a line from The Bard. And then there are the ...

Accents. OK so 14th century Verona would be a bit of a melting pot of cultures but Jeremy Isaacs' fake Yorkshire accent is just distracting even given everyone changing to American accents when they sing.

But the scrapings from the bottom of the barrel must be the total lack of chemistry between Juliet and Romeo. So little chemistry that no amount of their bad acting can make even a glimmer of a spark. It's actually a relief when they "die" (though being unconscious can't stop them singing)

At 2hrs 2mins of life that you will never get back, this is definitely one to miss but there's a closing threat of "to be continued..."