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aledul
IMDb member since December 2007
Reviews
Romeo and Juliet (2014)
As terrible as it can be
6 January 2016 - 11 out of 11 users found this review helpful.
By far, the worst adaptation ever: apart from the name of the characters, there is nothing left from the original play.
The story has been rewritten, making all the characters super-stereotypical, as if the original complexity of intentions was not suitable for our times. As a consequence, for 2 hours I will unfortunately never get back, I had to assist to aberrations like:
- Juliet has a secret place were she goes to pray for all the wars to stop
- Romeo has a dialogue with his father in which he asks to stop the feud
- Juliet has a sister, Ursula (!!!). Ursula has been promised to Paris, who prickly insists to have Juliet instead
- Juliet was promised to Tybalt (!!!)
- Romeo and Juliet's parents do know about the marriage, and actively try to block it
In the end, all of the characters' depth and motivations are lost, and what remains is the story of two anti-war lovers opposed by everyone else. This simplification is and insult to the intelligence of the audience and does seem arrogant on the parts of the screenwriters.
On top of this, all the dialogue has been butchered by a failed attempt of modernization, with the result of being just sloppy.
Recitation is amateurish, while many settings and framings are a bad copy of the classic Zeffirelli production.
All in all, you will find much more depth and art in every average high school production. If Shakespeare was alive he would just sue them for butchering his play like this.
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