Romeo & Juliet: Sealed with a Kiss (2005) User Reviews

Interesting ("retro" on so many levels) Indie Success

[eschetic · 4/10 · 17 June 2007]

No, it isn't Disney, and it isn't even quite Shakespeare (the almost too clever but crafty subtitle "Sealed With A Kiss" tells us that), but as a throwback to one and a light introduction to the other, this very little (77 minute) film deserves to find an appreciative audience.

The one-man, single cell "flat" animation is smoothly done and handsome. While the brown and yellow Romeo and Juliet seals (to distinguish between the Montague and Capulet herds) are closer to the look of Casper the Ghost and friends than the more detailed "flat" animation from the corporate giants at Disney, Pixar or Bluth, it is several steps ahead of the still popular (among the undemanding young) work associated with Rankin-Bass. The standard Nibbelink maintains is consistent and impressive. Even the Elephant Seal "Prince" who stands in for Shakespeare's Duke who threatens any who would disturb the streets of his Venice does not recall the visual sloppiness of the broad lines Ursula, the evil witch in Disney's LITTLE MERMAID was rendered in.

The script might have tried a little harder (it omits more Shakespearian characters than it had to - where's the nurse? - and while it feels free to drop in "famous" Shakespearian quotes from other plays at any convenient turn for the amusement of the adult audience, it could have used a few more in the actual plot without turning off the younger set), but it is coherent and even in "smoothing out" the rough edges of one of Shakespeare's most famous tragedies for overly sensitive parents, it preserves the essence of most of Shakespeare's lessons (at least as interpreted these 400 years later).

Charm is the key word here - it is a charming film, and a very nicely done one, even if it were from a major studio. From a one-man operation it's close to a miracle that any student of film or animation should put on their "must-discover" list. Even before the kids are ready for MONSTERS INC. or SHREK 1, 2 or 3, this ROMEO AND JULIET, Sealed With A Kiss would be a very good choice for a wise parent.

Worst Romeo and Juliet ever

[ericstevenson · 3/10 · 22 August 2017]

Given that we have had three awful animated Titanic movies, it only fits that sooner or later we'd have a bad movie based on Shakespeare. The thing is, the animation isn't really terrible and neither is the movie. It's still really bad, though. This movie reenacts "Romeo And Juliet" only with cartoon seals for really no reason at all. As you might have guessed, there's a bunch of dumb kid's songs in it. Of course they wouldn't actually die at the end, it's a kid's movie! If "The Lion King" could be "Hamlet" with cartoon animals, this could have been good too.

The worst thing is probably how annoying the characters are. Even the extras are obnoxious in this particularly with how they won't shut up about how Romeo and Juliet can't get together. There's also this super annoying little fish that fights a shark by getting other fish to slap it or something stupid like that. I guess Romeo and Juliet aren't that annoying, but everyone else is. There's this elephant seal that supposed to have bad breath, but he looks more like he's farting out his mouth. The pacing is terrible and don't expect any faithful scenes from the play. *1/2

Great animation, script and music not so great

[TheLittleSongbird · 4/10 · 4 March 2010]

I love Shakespeare, and was intrigued at how "Romeo and Juliet:Sealed with a Kiss" would turn out. I did hear from people it was a disgrace to Shakespeare, but I have been known to disagree with critics and the IMDb ratings, so I gave this a chance. It wasn't absolutely repulsive, but it didn't quite click with me. The best asset of the film is the animation. The backgrounds are fluid and colourful and the characters with the exception of the Prince were well drawn. Considering the animation was done by one man, Phil Nibbelink, it was quite impressive visually. The story pretty much follows the storyline of the play, except it is about seals, plus some (I think) pointless scenes with Friar Lawrence and a shark, and the voice acting was on the whole decent. However, there are a lot of things wrong with it. I personally didn't care for the music. I love good music in animated films, but here I found the songs forgettable and bland, and the incidental music felt misplaced. I will say I liked one or two of the characters, Romeo and Juliet are appealing enough and the Kissing Fish is really cute. However, Friar Lawrence is not the wise caring character I associate him with, and I do not know why the Nurse was omitted when she provides the most effective source of parental love in the play. In my opinion, I didn't like the character of the Prince at all, I didn't like how he was drawn and his voice was too monotonic for my liking. Worst of all was the script, constant misuse of the Shakespeare language and Mercutio's jokes went well overboard, and especially in his death scene they weren't even funny. Overall, this movie was okay but I don't recommend it. 4/10 Bethany Cox

Seals do Shakespeare (but not for purists)

[edboles · 28 October 2006]

Sealed With a Kiss is a traditional fully-animated film, with seals doing Shakespeare. I admit that like many others, I wasn't totally sold on the concept, but then when you get down to it The Lion King was basically Hamlet with lions, and few seemed to have a problem with that. Turned out to be quite a fun little movie.

While the dialogue is modern, the film has a few of the characters quoting famous Shakespearian lines, but in a way that shouldn't alienate children. It's more of a comedic thing. The story gets going straight away, with rivalry between the 2 groups of seals. This is part about racism, but for the most part, an old-fashioned feud. I was worried going in that the romance would be forced and sappy. Well maybe it is a little sappy, but it's sweet, and sincerely handled. As in the play, it's love at first sight. Two of the songs near the start were, I thought rather weak, but they at least progressed the story. As the film gets going, there are fewer songs.

Unlike the play, the film is light in tone and has many comedic elements. There are a few laugh-out-loud moments but some of Mercutio's puns are groan inducing(even the characters in the film seem to think so). As you would expect, liberties are taken (most notably the ending), and it isn't weighed down like some adaptations. To be honest, I fully expected it to be Romeo & Juliet in name only, and sure enough a great many story elements have no relation whatsoever to what Shakespeare wrote, but I was surprised that the core of what is here is more or less true to what I remember of the original.

I was particularly interested to see how the animation turned out, as it has emerged that this film is that rarest of things: a one man animated film. Phil Nibbelink wrote, directed and animated every frame of the film over the course of 5 years. Despite this, it is remarkably well animated. Well drawn fluid cartoony animation. It's not quite of the level of a top notch Disney animated film, but it comes very close, indeed far closer than I would have ever dreamed possible for a one-man effort. A few shortcuts are taken, but there are a surprising number of scenes animated on ones (which takes twice as many drawings as is usually necessary). This means the animation can be that extra bit more fluid. Some shortcuts can be seen in some of the background characters and effects animation, but this is generally where it matters least. The important stuff, the character animation, is top notch, what you would expect from a strong Disney animator (which is what Nibbelink spent a decade working as). The backgrounds are soft-focus simple and uncluttered to frame the character animation. In a few cases these are perhaps a little rushed, but all in all, they set the atmosphere and do the job.

Even with the lighter tone, it still manages strong dramatic moments. Despite the villain of the piece being a doofus played mostly for laughs, he nevertheless adds menace to the proceedings. There's nothing here that should bother small children, and they should have no trouble following the storyline. While the film aims at a young audience that may not yet be ready for this kind of romance, there should be enough action and comedy to keep them entertained.

Dreadful, incomprehensible and worst of all: pointless.

[schrodingers_duck · 1/10 · 22 January 2010]

Romeo and Juliet: Sealed with a Kiss (DO YOU SEE WHAT THEY DID THERE? IT'S ABOUT SEALS!) is possibly the laziest excuse for a film I've ever seen. There are maybe 5 surnames in the credits to this film - clearly the backers of this film called in every family favour they could. One of the characters, a talking fish, is played by the director's daughter, for instance. She sounds about 8. She gets to sing a solo of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. This should give you some idea of the sheer skill and respect for the craft that went into this.

First of all, an interpretation of Romeo and Juliet where no-one dies feels... well, redundant. You can't really take one of the great tragedies and tack on a happy ending. Doubly so if that happy ending involves Mercutio surfboarding in taking racist jokes with the punchlines replaced by the word "Capulet".

Also, there is a dance scene on the Titanic. I don't know why these awful children's films feel the need to use the deaths of thousands for cheap laughs, but it's a trend that is apparently spreading.

And when it's all said and done, the Shakespeare content is pretty weak. The family rivalry is replaced by lazy racism, characters are cut or merged to the point of nonsense (we want Tybalt!), the ending is changed, all the scenes describing their courtship are cut and replaced with badly sung musical numbers, and yet Mercutio feels the need to constantly quote other Shakespeare plays! And use words like "thou" and "wherefore" wrongly, which isn't very educational at all.

All in all: hilarious for adults who know Shakespeare and are drunk. Weak otherwise.

Lousy Shakespeare Adaptation with Animated Seals

[elicopperman · 2/10 · 4 July 2023]

While William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet is one of the writer's most popular works of art, the film adaptations have varied in quality over the years. Arguably one of the most infamous takes on the source would have to be the arctic seal focused Romeo & Juliet: Sealed with a Kiss. Directed and entirely animated by former Disney animator Phil Nibbelink through his own independent company, the film has been heavily criticized over the years for being a poor take on the source material and has more so been cherished amongst the internet as something to poke fun at. In regards to how it was made, one can see why.

The film follows two star-crossed seals, Romeo and Juliet who fall in love in spite of the warring hatred their families face against each other. With that basic theme of love triumphing over blind sighted prejudice, the story has little to no engagement going on beyond its basic storyline. Despite a lot of tension between the two seal families against each other, there is hardly much development on either side to gain sympathy or genuine resentment towards. Even the presumably tyrannical prince elephant seal isn't fully realized enough to determine if he is a genuine threat to our leads or if he's a blubbering buffoon. To make matters worse, the attempts at comedy are annoying with Romeo's trouble making friend Mercutio, who never shuts up in his depressing attempts at yucking up the scenery. You know your characters range from annoyingly bland to downright annoying when whatever stakes that do pop up feel more like a blessing than something to feel concerned about. One has to wonder why any of the characters are seals when the whole setting could have taken place anywhere in the first place.

Now to give credit where credit is due, considering that this entire movie was made by Nibbelink himself, it is impressive how he was able to craft the whole feature from scratch. Despite some unappealing cutesy character designs and some occasionally dated compositing, the character animation is highly expressive and full of energy around the arctic environments. Even some of the color choices are appropriately chosen to fit the tonal shifts, complete with some well drawn backgrounds and creative effects animation. That being said, one can tell when the animation switches from frame by frame to rigged in the blink of an eye. Outside of that, that's where the positives end, as even the best animation can't save this snoozefest of a Shakespearre tale. On top of stereotypically generic voice acting that feels more like cartoon impressions than genuine performances, it is often painfully obvious whenever you hear stock production music throughout the background. I understand utilizing the most of your resources, but people will forgive bad visuals long before they'll forgive bad audio.

In summary, Romeo & Juliet: Sealed with a Kiss fails as both an alternative take on the Shakespeare tragedy and a stand alone introduction to the material thanks to its paper thin story, cloying characters and obvious small production values. However, it might be best to acknowledge this feature as an early footnote to independent animation produced by industry veterans when we are seeing more and more personal projects coming to light. No matter how poorly made a first attempt may be in that regard, products like this are worth appreciating for the good they do in the long run.

no

[justaklutz · 1/10 · 24 June 2015]

WARNING NOT SAFE FOR CHILDREN!!!!!!!!! This movie is absolutely atrocious! The animation is lazy and the characters are poorly crafted at best. I showed this to my high school students and they were uncomfortable with some of the innuendo and awkward moments provided by a demonic floating fish. No one dies, the singing is awful, the prince is rather rape-y, and the animation is sub-par, especially for 2006!

Go watch Gnomeo and Juliet if you want a quality adaptation of Shakespeare's work. This "adaptation" if we are giving it that much credit is a stretch of the truth. The Mercutio character is in incredibly poor taste and the thinly veiled racist undertones are uncalled for and rude.

As my students said "Let's hop the nope train out of here."

In my opinion, the worst film in the world

[brassduke · 1/10 · 21 May 2011]

seriously, the singing and voices are really annoying! what's the point on letting young children watch a film about two seals that fall in love and talk stuff, it is REALLY annoying, i just wish i forgot about this film forever, that and 'time bandits (1981)' there's also a fish that talks like a baby and a fat seal for an antagonist, why concern these things when nobody understands that awkward films aren't my number one! i hated it, IT'S THE WORST FILM EVER EXISTING ON THIS TURNING PLANET OF Africa, ASIA, AND FREAKIN' America!!!!!!!! as for the director, he doesn't care, all he cares is his arctic drama ideas that everyone hates, spread the word, kids: SEALS ARE BAD FILMMAKERS!!

Changed everything

[dth_blade · 1/10 · 7 August 2008]

This movie was bad on its own. The singing was horrible. But the fact that they took Shakespeare play and turned it into mush is unacceptable.

Everything was different from the original Shakespeare script. For starters, NOBODY died in this movie. Not Romeo, not Juliet, not Mercutio, not Tybalt(who was not even in the film). And Juliet is to marry the prince instead of Paris(who again, is not in this film) I know that its for kids but you are doing Shakespeare so all his plays have tragedy. None of his films have happy endings. This film might have been a bit better if it was a brand new film, but if you say you are going to follow Shakespeare, at least do not change the whole plot and have the guts to pin it on him.

Very, very sweet

[Mightyzebra · 8/10 · 12 July 2008]

When people criticize this film, they probably forget that this is a children's film. It is just a very sweet children's film based on "Romeo and Juliet" and the characters are seals (save Friar Lawrence, who is an otter). Kids will not enjoy films where a great deal of characters die and they will not enjoy a live action film about lovers.

Even though I'm not a kid, however, I very much enjoyed this film - partly because I remembered that this was made for children. I also enjoyed it because of the way it was made: the plot, the animation and the characters. The songs are also sweet, but forgettable. The way one man made this film pretty much all by himself is worth giving credit for. I imagine that about 95% of the human population could not manage that.

You will probably know the story of Romeo and Juliet, there are two feuding families and a boy and a girl, both from the feuding families, fall in love with each other. Well, this film is like that, only with seals.

I recommend this to people who do not mind Shakespeare being very much adapted on and to every little kid who likes animated films and seals. Enjoy "Romeo and Juliet: Sealed With a Kiss"! :-)

P.S "The Lion King II" is WAY more adapted from "Romeo and Juliet" and no-one criticizes that film because of it.

P.P.S Last time I checked (which was when I watched it today), the whole of this film was available on Youtube, so you can watch it on there.

My Ultimate Guilty Pleasure

[allyball-63124 · 6/10 · 15 June 2016]

If you're expecting me to bash this movie into oblivion then you will be very disappointed because I don't hate this movie. In fact, I don't even dislike it which is ironic since it has almost everything I'm against. Here's a full list: Underdeveloped romance, flat characters, nonsensical plot points, a rap number (yes really,) bringing characters back from the dead, and rewriting an overdone story. With that in mind, I should hate this movie but I don't! Why you may ask? One reason is nostalgia. As a kid, I absolutely adored this movie. I saw it almost every day until I was like 8! So when I watch this movie I get a bit of nostalgia for some of those scenes in the movie that sucked me in as a kid. Another reason is the absolutely gorgeous hand drawn animation. Yeah the designs are a little off but I like it. Plus, the backgrounds are very atmospheric. I guess I like young love and even though it's underdeveloped, seeing 2 cute little seals in love is just adorable to me. I can see how it could be creepy for other older viewers but I think it's cute. The ending is also pretty satisfying. While it doesn't follow the book, it's downright adorable. Speaking of the book, this movie followed the book as close as it could without killing off our adorable main leads. They even kept the balcony scene! Overall, this movie does get a little childish at times (and I do skip those scenes) but it's overall cute and sweet.

A Big A+ Film

[ja_kitty_71 · 10/10 · 1 August 2007]

I was shocked and surprised by the negative reviews I saw on the web. I thought this film by Phil Nibbelink (director of An American Tail: Fievel Goes West) was very good from the moment I saw the trailer; I also love seals.

I have always loved the works of William Shakespeare ever since I studied him in my high school English classes. Also, I strongly agree with Laura Tiffany of "Home Media Magazine" and Rick Bentley of "Fresno Bee" : it's impressive and a sweet film that should delight the family. Overall, I give this film a big A+ for great backgrounds, excellent color styling, and very good music.

Not that bad

[FilmFreak94 · 7/10 · 20 May 2011]

Before I went into watching this film I read a bit about it from other viewers and based on what they said I had pretty low expectations for it. But after viewing the whole thing I've come to the realization... it's not that bad. The animation is really well done and the story is filled with Shakespeare jokes that any thespian or theater buff will get a good chuckle out of. Not that there aren't problems with it though. The voice acting and singing can often range from good, mediocre, or just plain bad. The characters themselves are all moderately enjoyable except for one in particular... a fish called Kissy(you'll know her when you see her and you'll either love or hate her).

If you're looking for a movie to entertain your kids or to just kill some time I'd recommend this to you but be forewarned, this is the kind of movie you'll either hate or like.

I give Romeo & Juliet: Sealed with a Kiss a 6.5/10 leaning towards a 7.

Great Movie to Watch High or Drunk with Friends

[kiamos-43012 · 10/10 · 5 November 2019]

If you like the color blue, this movie is for you! All of the backgrounds are solid shades of varying tones of blue, making the whole film look the same, shot to shot no matter where we are. Sealed with a Kiss actually does have it's moments of genuinely being good, but that might be because the original play is so iconic and just a perk for the movies benefit, as opposed to it really being a good film. The animation slides around at points as if the characters are just being squashed and stretched, the music is so bland I honestly can't remember any of it, the lines from the play are either butchered by seal puns or so out of place that I doubt a kid would recognize what's being said, and just when it feels like the movie is ending it keeps going! Hoo boy, good watch for kids if you want a free youtube movie to pop on, but a great movie if your inebriated in some way.

TBH, just show kids Gnomeo and Juliette, at least its more of an adaptation instead of whatever Sealed with a Kiss is.

Not as bad as the member ratings suggests

[Alncr · 6/10 · 1 July 2017]

I remember accidentally stumbling on watching this movie with a family member one night back in later 2006 as a late teen, and I don't remember it being as bad as the 3.7/10 total user rating currently shown on the film's page. Which isn't too surprising given that lots of people today are hypercritical of things or films that aren't "by the book", as I definitely remember this one being a little unique from the Shakespeare play this movie is based on.

In terms of an animated movie altogether for all audiences and not just kids, it's not excellent or probably not very good either, as I remember some things were too childish to my taste. But nevertheless, after looking at some clips of it again now, there were a few scenes that are interesting to say the least. Particularly, the wedding scene between the young Romeo and Juliet seal couple with the otter Friar, as the way this entire part was done (including the organ music) is the one I had remembered the most from this film.

It isn't everyone's favorite but I thought it was cute!

[jtprob · 7/10 · 13 September 2020]

I think this movie is kind of a love or hate situation, either you're a very cheesy person or you're not and you'll despise this film with all your might. I remember watching this when I was in 2nd grade and I really loved the animation. At the time I thought the animation was so fluent and amazing, and as a teen now, I still think it has a lot of good work out in it even if there were times where the animation was just squash and stretch. The backgrounds were very pretty, they put a lot of atmosphere in them, and not only that but they put those background colors reflected on the characters, creating a lot of unity!! Altho the animation and backgrounds were quite well done, the plot is a little too "comedic" and childish, in Mercutio's death scene, and ESPECIALLY in the end scene where he tells Romeo to wake up when everyone else is mourning over the losses. Mercutio keeps his character, but it isn't in a very likable and people will not understand it. The scenes may be childish for a lot of people, even for me I cringed a bit in a lot of the scenes. I recall my mom and her saying "you're watching THAT again?". I knew she thought it was plain stupid just by her voice, and I begged to differ. I know on YouTube there we're plenty of teens such as myself who talked about how they somehow stumbled upon this on netflix at the time and they respect it a lot, especially as their childhood. They especially claimed that they really enjoyed, and still enjoyed coming back to this, most probably for some childhood nostalgia. Anywho, if you hate it I understand, but if you still like it, "bro same.".

It Was OK

[zsofikam · 6/10 · 12 July 2018]

If I could describe Romeo & Juliet: Sealed With A Kiss in one word, it would be "OK." It's debatable whether OK is a word but that's beside the point. I came into Sealed With A Kiss expecting it to be pretty bad, but was surprised to find that it was better than I thought it would be, not great or even particularly good but not horrible either. Don't come in expecting Romeo And Juliet because this is more a light introduction for the 3-6 crowd. Besides the fact that all the characters are seals (aside from Friar Lawrence, who is an otter for some unexplained reason), there's a somewhat happier ending and some characters are either combined or eliminated entirely. Paris and the Prince are combined into the seal prince and Tybalt and the Nurse are nowhere to be found. Anyway, not as bad I as was expecting but still something of a mixed bag. One the one hand; the animation is quite nice (especially considering it was done by only one person), there were some good character designs, most of the characters were likable enough, and the Kissy Fish was cute, although I wasn't a fan of the voice. As for the bad points; while most of the character designs were good but the Prince looked oddly phallic and while I like the Kissy Fish's design, her voice I found irritating. I also wasn't too keen on the songs and honestly thought that this could have just as easily been without them. Also, I would have Tybalt and the Nurse to be at least mentioned, but at least it's not missing nearly as many characters as The Black Cauldron. Overall, I thought it was just OK; not all that good but not as bad as either people say or I was expecting it to be.