recently one night a young director named baz luhrmann couldn't sleep . he tumbled out of bed and moved over to the television where he watched mtv for an hour . then he moved to his kitchen where he spent the same amount of time eating spoiled food . then he took down a volume of shakespeare's work and read it cover to cover - never really paying attention to the words or plot . and then , as a climax , he took out his video camera and pressed the " on " button . the result ? william shakespeare's romeo + juliet - the worst film ever made and a complete failure . though , to be fair , an interesting complete failure . the idea at the film's core is to make shakespeare appealing to the crowds . this is done by moving the camera around at a rapid rate so that we can't see what is going on . and filming the dialogue in voice over . and shooting leonardo dicaprio like a calvin klein model . and making the frame go still while flashing the character's name at the bottom . and filming long tedious action sequences in slow motion . i mean , man , this is the 90s , dude . however i've seen terrible films that are fun to watch . ( examples are batman and robin and the island of doctor moreau . ) that rule doesn't apply here . this is a film that takes itself seriously . that is it's major fault . another problem was pointed out by my friend , alex ( who was singing songs by leonard bernstein throughout . ) ; the original play is a powerful piece of work because the author remained neutral and didn't take sides . here it's clear that we are supposed to side with romeo . ( just look at the way they film him . ) from the begining he's our hero and this doesn't work . and dicaprio's awful performance doesn't help . luhrmann never decides if he wants to entertain us or enlighten us . the result is a mess . you can feel him striving to be something he isn't . he tries to pull of a mix in which drag queens are filmed from purposefully arty angles . he tries very hard . key word : tries . " oh look , he's filming above water action from below . pretty . what does it represent ? " why do people do ugly things ? i scrambled away from my tv set feeling guilty as if i could never read the play again and keep a straight face .
