Review of Movie Romeo&Juliet

The Tragic Love

Title: Romeo + Juliet 1996Author: Shakespeare
Director: Baz Luhrmann
Date I viewed: 10.31
Location: In IB lit and Perf classMain 
Actors: Leonardo---Romeo, Claire---Juliet,  Pete Postlethwaite--- Friar Lawrence, Harold Perrineau---Mercutio, John Leguizamo---Tybalt,  Miriam Margolyes The Nurse.

The story is talking about the love story between two person. At first the reporter was talking about the background information of the story and the relationship between two families---Montague and Capulet. In the book The capulet and Montague and Romeo and Juliet read the information of the play. The beginning of the movie is the scene of the whole city of Verona. It's like power point playing the pictures. Romeo love Rasoline, but after he went to Capulet's party. They meet when they are looking at the fish tank, at first Juliet looks shy. She avoid the eye contact of Romeo, after few second she smiled. Romeo and Juliet staring at each other. Then he fall in love with Juliet. After the party, Romeo goes to meet Juliet again, they meet under the balcony, they have a sweet conversation.  After Nurse told Juliet to have a marriage with Romeo, Juliet and Romeo have a secret marriage. Then Tybalt comes for Romeo and he fight with Romeo, Mercutio can't bare his friend is beating by their enemy. So Tybat fight with Mercutio and Mercutio killed by Tybalt. This part is also different from the original version. In that version, Mercutio provoke Tybalt at first so Tybalt fight with Mercutio and then Mercutio died. Then Romeo feels vey sad about this and the sky was thundering, and it's begin to rain. Romeo feels very angry, so he is going to kill Tybalt, and revenge for his best friend. He drive the Car and Hit the car of Tybalt. He killed Tybalt, after he kills Tybalt he goes to Frair Lawrence's house. He also be banished by the prince, so he goes Mantua. Juliet feels sad and her parents want her to marry Paris, so he goes to find Lawrence, and Lawrence gives her a poison. After Romeo knows Juliet died he rush back to Verona. Romeo goes to find a person and buy a poison that has strong virulence. After that he goes to find Juliet, in the end although Juliet is wake up, but she doesn't know Romeo is drinking the poison. They missed the opportunity to stay together. In the end Juliet also kills herself by the gun. After this event prince punished Montague and Capulet. The theme of the movie is the tragic love story of Romeo and Juliet, and the movie also want to shows the disagreement made by parents. They limit the action of their kids, and they doesn't want their kids to married their enemy's son. 

For different scene I will choose different color, when two person fall in love I will choose purple for them. First they are young they are teenagers. Second they have passion of love. They can do anything for love. Purple means passion, so I think Purple can better represent Passion of Love. For the battle scene, I will use red for background color. Because Red means blood and in the movie they fall in love and the whole background color is blue means water. Red means fire, and I think Love can solve any problems, just like water can off the fire. That's why I choose Red. For the dying scene,  I will use white color. Because white means blank, death and heaven. After people died they will go to heaven, white can represent heaven, and people will also become blank, no more colorful life. For costume, in the original version people wear old fashion clothes. But the movie is modern style so I will let the actors wear the normal clothes. For the nobles Montague and Capulet, they should wear many jewelry, and fashion clothes. For Fair Lawrence he should always dress like a God Father. I will always highlight the important character of each scene, such as Romeo, Juliet. The audience should always focus on these main characters. Because it's a movie so we can use the sunlight or moon light to present the characters. When the character are fighting we can play passionate music and when it's love scene we can play romantic music. Some of the servants and flat characters we don't have to focus on these characters, they are very similar, we don't have to highlight them. 

I think Romeo does a great job on acting. First this actor is very famous, he has good acting skills. Leonardo is the actor of Romeo. He adds his own emotion into the character, when Romeo finds out Juliet is died, he acts very sad. The scene looks very real to me, I can feel the sad. When he is driving the car, I can see the sincere and sturdy from his eye, I can feel his emotion when he feel sad about his best friend. When he fight with Tybalt I can feel how Romeo hates Tybalt. The scene he acts is very real. 

I like this movie very much, unless the ending part. Because before the ending part, the movie changes a lot. I think the changes is very attract me. It's my first time know famous literary writing can change to modern style. It's a huge change. The perspective of each character changed. Each character also has different looks. The ending part doesn't show the tragic love story, I think the director should look the original version. I think the original version is better. it's represent tragic. I don't understand the ending part of the movie. The plot seems fake. I learned a lot from the movie. It use lots of thing to alternate with the thing in the normal version. Like love is water and hostility is fire.