himbletony
Joined May 2012
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Reviews9
himbletony's rating
This is not a good film let alone a not so bad version of Romeo and Juliet. The whole enterprise is pretty, but irredeemably flat. Douglas Booth looks like a renaissance beauty, while Hailee Steinfeld just looks like the girl next door, but even allowing for this disparity, they both speak their lines as if they were reading round in an English class : no indication that they felt the passion or even understood the lines (although one supposes that they may well have done). There is therefore, zero chemistry between the two hapless actors, which is the death knell for any story of passion.
Much is made of Fellowes' script (most of it bad). The thing is, it's an uneasy mixture that works neither as version of Shakespeare, nor as its own version. Fellowes might have received more respect had he gone full out to re-conceive the dialogue in quasi-medieval terms, but he obviously lacked the nerve. The directorial choices didn't help either : in the Zefferelli version, Romeo's eyes are following Rosalind when there is a parting of the dancers and Juliet is revealed in her full height and beauty in a stunning red dress, wearing no mask. In this version, we see a few hints of a masked Juliet, with no visual impact. Therefore, the poetic line "it seems that she hangs from the cheek of night like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear" is stupid, because he can't even see her properly in order to make such a judgement, particularly as Steinfeld is not in the same league as the jewel-like Hussey. Hussey and Whiting both outdo these two leads in the clarity and urgency of their delivery. The famous misunderstood word "wherefore" in the balcony scene, which means "WHY are you Romeo?" which then leads to the questioning of how we name things (What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet") is actually delivered by Seinfeld as if Juliet IS saying "Where are you Romeo?" and the following musing not a logical extension of that incorrect idea.
The extra details add nothing to the story (the jousting for example) and just muddy things unnecessarily. The fight scenes lack the messy confusion that such a brawl would be (Zefferelli got that right again) leading to a less immediate and more artificial effect. The fact that a lot of this was shot in Verona means absolutely nothing if you are not engaged. I weep every time I watch the Zefferelli version. This one just bored me. A botched job.
Much is made of Fellowes' script (most of it bad). The thing is, it's an uneasy mixture that works neither as version of Shakespeare, nor as its own version. Fellowes might have received more respect had he gone full out to re-conceive the dialogue in quasi-medieval terms, but he obviously lacked the nerve. The directorial choices didn't help either : in the Zefferelli version, Romeo's eyes are following Rosalind when there is a parting of the dancers and Juliet is revealed in her full height and beauty in a stunning red dress, wearing no mask. In this version, we see a few hints of a masked Juliet, with no visual impact. Therefore, the poetic line "it seems that she hangs from the cheek of night like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear" is stupid, because he can't even see her properly in order to make such a judgement, particularly as Steinfeld is not in the same league as the jewel-like Hussey. Hussey and Whiting both outdo these two leads in the clarity and urgency of their delivery. The famous misunderstood word "wherefore" in the balcony scene, which means "WHY are you Romeo?" which then leads to the questioning of how we name things (What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet") is actually delivered by Seinfeld as if Juliet IS saying "Where are you Romeo?" and the following musing not a logical extension of that incorrect idea.
The extra details add nothing to the story (the jousting for example) and just muddy things unnecessarily. The fight scenes lack the messy confusion that such a brawl would be (Zefferelli got that right again) leading to a less immediate and more artificial effect. The fact that a lot of this was shot in Verona means absolutely nothing if you are not engaged. I weep every time I watch the Zefferelli version. This one just bored me. A botched job.
This movie is tiresome in the extreme, totally over-hyped, over-rewarded and ridiculous. I first saw it when it first came out and the interminable amount of time it took before the iceberg hove into view was mind-numbing.
So many problems. The opening framing device was totally unnecessary and felt sooooo long, while adding nothing to our understanding, nor even piqueing our interest (wasn't that supposed to be the intention?).
Then the cast of stereotypes! Awful, and all saddled with flat, uninspired dialogue or worse still, retrospective smart-alec bits ("Picasso? He won't amount to much", "Freud? Who is he? Is he one of the passengers?" .....groan).
The fatal casting of Leonardo di Caprio, still in his baby face mode as a well travelled man of the arts (???), while Kate Winslett, mature and a little blowsy (nothing wrong with that) appears almost old enough to be his mother, is a serious misjudgement. Her fiancé (a luckless Billy Zane) lacked only a moustache that he could fiendishly twist in his most unctuous moments. A total pantomime creation (the villain in Avatar was a similar one dimensional character).
I saw the beginning on TV recently and watched again up until Kate is rescued from leaping off the stern. I hoped that I might be able to reassess it. No chance. It got me just as annoyed as the first time, the improbabilities just as ludicrous (would the crew REALLY have allowed Leo and chum to the bow to yell "King of the world"?). The only reason this got two stars was for the technical sequences during the sinking, but as for the fate of the protagonists, by that stage I was past caring. If only they had employed a talented screen writer. Such a waste.
So many problems. The opening framing device was totally unnecessary and felt sooooo long, while adding nothing to our understanding, nor even piqueing our interest (wasn't that supposed to be the intention?).
Then the cast of stereotypes! Awful, and all saddled with flat, uninspired dialogue or worse still, retrospective smart-alec bits ("Picasso? He won't amount to much", "Freud? Who is he? Is he one of the passengers?" .....groan).
The fatal casting of Leonardo di Caprio, still in his baby face mode as a well travelled man of the arts (???), while Kate Winslett, mature and a little blowsy (nothing wrong with that) appears almost old enough to be his mother, is a serious misjudgement. Her fiancé (a luckless Billy Zane) lacked only a moustache that he could fiendishly twist in his most unctuous moments. A total pantomime creation (the villain in Avatar was a similar one dimensional character).
I saw the beginning on TV recently and watched again up until Kate is rescued from leaping off the stern. I hoped that I might be able to reassess it. No chance. It got me just as annoyed as the first time, the improbabilities just as ludicrous (would the crew REALLY have allowed Leo and chum to the bow to yell "King of the world"?). The only reason this got two stars was for the technical sequences during the sinking, but as for the fate of the protagonists, by that stage I was past caring. If only they had employed a talented screen writer. Such a waste.