Juliet & Romeo

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..."

Two households botched alike sans dignity, In fair Verona, where we waste our scene, From pop-song folly and false mimicry Of love, thus butchered on a streaming screen.

"O teach me how I should forget to think," Cries Romeo, yet I remember still The cringèd tunes, the cuts that made me blink, A tale of woe refashioned void of skill.

What light through yonder edit breaks? 'Tis cheap.

The soul of Juliet drowned in soulless gloss; And Romeo doth pout, but cannot weep- For depth and verse are both a grievous loss.

This trash, a mirror of our addled age: Where meme is king, and fools deface the stage.

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.

This film is a bit all over the place and never quite hit on what I think it intended to.

First, the cinematography is often jumbled and rushed. The angles are off and the lighting is awkward, many scenes leaving you feeling almost as if you're watching an older person play a first-person open-wolrld video game for the first time. Additionally, it appears that they have chosen to add cold air breath effects to almost every person speaking, even in daytime scenes. This became very distracting for me.

The writing in the movie seemed way off. Many times the characters used Shakespearean speak for dialogue, then other times it was modern, felt like the writing of a high school play. Then all of the songs were lyrically written in completely different form of speaking than the way the characters normally spoke in dialogue.

On the topic of the songs, they felt completely out of place from the rest of the movie. In many musicals, the songs fit in with the scenes and they feel connected, relevant, and as if it is a continuation of a scene, not a break from it. In Julie & Romeo, the songs feel like a break from the scenes. They feel very much like an odd music video in the middle of watching this movie. Many odd music videos. Every song sounds so musically busy and over-produced and it is very obvious the characters are lip-syncing.

The only good parts about this film are the set and then some of the costumes (some costumes felt like costumes, maybe even from Spirit Halloween). Also the storyline, while different from the actual story of Romeo and Juliet, was overall fun and interesting. However, with all of the other poor choices and challenges the writers and director took with this movie, it left me really disliking the movie. It seemed like the film was majorly suffering from an identity crisis and didn't know if it should be a retelling of the original Shakespeare play, a musical in movie form, a musical in theatrical production form, a modern day love story, etc. Seems like they tried to include it all, jumble it together, and hoped for the best. This movie was a mess and I was counting down the time for it be over from the first song.

For anyone reading this and then going to see the film, good luck. Hopefully you'll feel differently about the movie and actually enjoy it.

I loved the lighting and directing of this movie... that's about it.

The same beats kept playing throughout the entire movie and I felt like I was slowly going insane. The auto tune was bad and the story was all over the place. I was honestly very confused through this whole movie and ended up bored towards the halfway point.

I did love one actor. His acting and singing really stole the show, and that man is Jamie Ward. Jamie Ward deserves a way better role than this. He needs to be a Disney Prince instead. He would excel at that. The girl that played Juliet wasn't great. Maybe it was the way they wrote her, but I just didn't like her. And why the title change from Romeo and Juliet to Juliet and Romeo other than to be modern. This movie clearly had an agenda and it failed.

My favorite Romeo and Juliet movie is Rosaline. It's funny and modern without being too much. The costumes are better and the acting is great. I know it's not exactly Romeo and Juliet, but it's close. Or watch Journey To Bethlehem. An amazing movie that actually felt true to the story.