I have no clue what they were trying to capture. I do not think that modernizing this story was a good idea. Even if you were to try to accomplish this, you should make it somewhat realistic. The opening scene is absolutely absurd and the whole layout in general. The whole idea of not changing the dialogue is also not a great idea. Why is Mercutio a transgender in the opening scene that he is introduced? If you're going to watch a Romeo and Juliet film, I recommend the original from 1968.

This and the '68 adaptation are so different they don't really compete with each other. Luhrmann is a genius. This version still stands as completely contemporary. The director makes the two kids wholly believable and alive. I liked the change he made to the death scene ending. DiCaprio stands out as ever. (viewed 4/17)

This a story by william shakespear. The play which is set in Verona is a story about a long feud between the Montague and Capulet families. Romeo and Juliet fall in love at a party. But they come from families which hate each other.They are sur they are not be allowed to marry. The positive points of the movie: This is a original representation of the drama. there are spectacular sets and soft music. The flaws oh the movie: We can see this movie too much. I love this film

Wildly fun adaptation of William Shakespeare's play by writer/director Baz Luhrmann. Changing the setting of Shakespeare's plays for film adaptations isn't a new thing. It had previously been done as musicals, westerns, samurai films, gangster pictures, indie dramas about street hustlers, teen comedies, teen dramas, and so on and so forth, but none of those films brought the exuberance and audacity as this film. Set in a Venice Beach-like setting between two feuding wealthy business family empires, Brian Dennehy as Ted Montague and Paul Sorvino as Fulgencio Capulet, with their star cross lover children, Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes, in roles that really put their stars on the Hollywood map, at the center of the drama. The film faithfully follows the source material's story and all of the dialogue is taken straight from the play, but the dialogue is amazingly accessible and understandable from the actors speaking the lines in a very naturalistic manner. Laurence Olivier was actually criticized in his day for delivering lines in too naturalistic of a manner and not in the traditional more sing-song of manner, which Kenneth Branagh took even further, but this film puts that on a whole new level. Actors here are gangsters, street punks, and thugs and deliver their lines as such, but their words are accessible in a way I'd never seen before that retained Shakespeare's original words. In some ways, it's kind of like Martin Scorsese's "The Last Temptation of Christ" where most all of the characters spoke as if they were off the mean streets of Brooklyn. In both cases it served to connect the characters and stories to modern audiences and crate less of a distance between the two. The film also drips of 1990s cool, with a very hip soundtrack and many fashions of the day (with a hint of Elizabethan). The film features a strong cast that also includes Harold Perrineau, Pete Postlethwaite, Paul Rudd, Vondie Curtis- Hall, M. Emmet Walsh, Jamie Kennedy, and a memorable Vincent Laresca. But the real start is Bad Luhrmann, who's combination of visuals, sound, and editing created a film so full of energy and audacity that it stands apart from any other Shakespearian film adaptation and is something truly unique. My only complaint about the film is that the modernization of the story also makes Romeo and Juliet's drama and romance seem overly trite and self important in a way that I found annoying. To the teens and teen audiences, I'm sure their love and feelings are very real and serious and worthy of live & death, but at the same time these are kids and they really shouldn't be taking themselves all that seriously. Leo and Clair might as well be the self important teens from "13 Reasons Why" for how overly serious they take themselves. Still, I don't think middle age men were Luhrmann's target audience here (i.e. me), so my criticism is probably not valid (i.e. I'm just being a cranky old man). Still, this is a wonderfully original film that demands multiple viewings.