Goofs for
Romeo + Juliet (1996) More at IMDbPro »

• Continuity: The Nurse's position in the church.
  
  
• Continuity: When Romeo bumps into Fulgencio Capulet while high at the party, his mask moves up and down on his face during different shots.
  
  
• Continuity: Romeo's wound swaps sides when he's with Juliet.
  
  

• Continuity: The poem book disappears from Romeo's hand when he stands up.
  
  
• Continuity: Juliet's hair as she falls into the pool.
  
  
• Continuity: After Juliet has taken the drug which puts her to sleep, her left hand changes between being above and below the cover.
  
  
• Continuity: The vial of poison falls from Romeo's hand when Juliet touches his cheek, but later she takes it out of his hand.
  
  
• Continuity: The position of the gun on the floor after Romeo shoots Tybalt.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Mercutio fires his gun at the beach as the Nurse is leading Romeo away to talk to him, there is a gunshot, but no flash or blowback.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Mercutio is shooting fish at the beach, his gun is heard firing, but there is no flash.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Mercutio is dying on the beach, digital clouds are blowing sideways, but on the ground, you can see the shadows of real clouds coming toward the camera.
  
  
• Continuity: In the balcony scene, Romeo knocks over a metal stand in his panic as the lights come on. It clatters to the floor but in the next shot it is standing up in its previous position.
  
  
• Continuity: When Mercutio and Benvolio are at the beach, the shirt that Mercutio is wearing is made of thin silk-like fabric and is see-through. After Mercutio has been killed, his shirt is made of a thicker linen and is not see-through.
  
  
• Continuity: Juliet's hand and gun after she shoots herself.
  
  
• Continuity: The buttons on Romeo's shirt after he learns of Juliet's death.
  
  
• Continuity: The covers on Juliet's bed change from being wrinkled to straightened out to wrinkled several times after she has taken the potion.
  
  
• Continuity: When Romeo learns of Juliet's death in the desert, his shirt is closed. Then when Balthasar goes to comfort him and Romeo pushes him away, his shirt is pulled open. Then later, after Romeo wails whilst crouching down, he stands up and his shirt is again closed.
  
  
• Continuity: Romeo falls from the balcony into the pool as the Nurse appears. He should have fallen hard on the pavement around the pool edge. He could not have reached the pool, even if he'd leaped out on purpose.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When we first see Juliet's house, the fountain footage is running in reverse.
  
  
• Continuity: When Abra shouts 'Boo!' at the petrol station, his sunglasses disappear.
  
  
• Boom mic visible: At the gas station showdown, a boom mic is visible in a car window as the camera moves past it.
  
  
• Continuity: When Romeo buys the poison, he runs up some stairs to visit the old man and we see nothing against the wall. However, when he drives off in the car, we can see a sofa and some clutter leaning up against the wall.
  
  
• Continuity: When Juliet meets Friar Laurence in the church she's wearing gloves. When he hands her the vial, her gloves are off.
  
  
• Continuity: In the church, the nurse and man in the long shot are sitting down. In the next shot, they're in the aisle again.
  
  
• Continuity: When Juliet drinks the vial of poison in her bed her feet are facing left, but when the coroners remove the covers the next morning, her feet are facing right.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: During Desiree's song at the Capulet party, the violinists are never shown playing. At the beginning and end of the song, the violins are on their shoulders, but during the part of the song with strings, no violins are visible at all.
  
  
• Continuity: The length of Tybalt's cigar at the beginning of the movie.
  
  
• Continuity: In the outlands of Mantua Romeo calls out Juliet's name from his knees while facing the sun. He then stands and turns around. In the next shot, shadows indicate that he is walking towards the sun again.
  
  
• Continuity: At the gas station, the Montagues never put the gas hose in the car. One of them is about to but is so scared of Tybalt that he puts it back. But when the Montagues pull away, it is shown in the tank, breaking the hose, and leading to the fire.
  
  
• Continuity: When Romeo is holding Mercutio in his arms as Mercutio puts a curse on both houses, Romeo has blood on his collar and left sleeve. When Romeo stands up the blood is gone.
  
  
• Continuity: After Romeo and Juliet spend the night together and she tells him that the light they see is not the sun, he rolls on top of her with the sheets billowing over his head. His shirt is first bunched up around his shoulders with his chest exposed, but is perfectly straight and covering his body in the next shot.
  
  
• Continuity: Juliet's mother calls her when she's in the tub submerged underwater. She comes out seconds later with dry hair.
  
  
• Continuity: When Juliet was getting out of the pool and pulling Romeo onshore, her white dress was wet and stuck to her body. But in the next shot her dress was totally dry and only her hair remained wet.
  
  
• Continuity: Pieces of Romeo's hair change from being in front/not in front of his face during the fish-tank scene.
  
  
• Continuity: As Romeo enters the church to find Juliet, he fires several times at the police, which would have left the gun cocked. Moments later he sets the gun down next to Juliet, and it's uncocked.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: When on the beach preparing for a duel, Abra ejects all the bullets from Tybalt's magazine except one. Romeo uses that same gun, in a new location, to kill Tybalt, shooting him 6-7 times. However, Tybalt carries two guns. The one Romeo uses is the second gun, which at this point was not unloaded.
  
  
• Continuity: During Romeo's soliloquy at Juliet's bier he rips off his necklace and places the ring, necklace and all, on her finger. The necklace reappears and disappears around his neck randomly in the scene.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Mercutio is dying on the beach, the digital clouds are blowing sideways, but on the ground, you can see the shadows of real clods coming toward the camera.
  
  
• Continuity: When Juliet's mother is looking for her daughter and running through the foyer, part of her nipple is exposed but in the next shot it is gone. Then, after speaking to Juliet in the dressing room she turns around with a cigarette and there are distinct black smudges on her chest. When she leaves the room, these smudges are gone.
  
  
• Errors in geography: Perhaps done intentionally in keeping with the more modern theme and exercising artistic license, the real Verona, Italy, looks nothing like the Verona depicted in the movie. Most obvious is that there is no sea or ocean anywhere near Verona, Italy. The closest beach is Lake Garda.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: The movie is set in fictitious Verona Beach, Florida, not the landlocked Verona, Italy.
  
  

• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): SPOILER: At the end, Captain Prince states that two of his relatives ("a brace of kinsmen") are dead. In the play, this refers to Mercutio and Paris. In the film, Paris does not die, so the line is meaningless.
  
  

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