Like I said in the last review, I tend to be pretty lazy when the option’s presented to me, so it goes without saying that I’ll take Baz Luhrman’s version of this Shakespeare play or even West Side Story over pretty much any other adaptation including this lavish and melodramatic production. Shakespeare in general for me has to have some kind of quirk or gimmick added to it on the way to the big screen, and I think there’s something in this argument – I mean, if I want “just” Shakespeare, I’ll go to the theatre for it (okay, I won’t, but you know what I mean): cinema’s something different. The one “proper” Shakespeare adaptation I rate really highly is Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet (soon to finally hit DVD, whoo! :)), and that’s probably because it was such an insane endeavor, the 70mm, the length, etc … but even then I had to remind myself of The Lion King to keep myself fully engaged, lol (okay maybe I shouldn’t be sharing that) – the Ethan Hawke update is probably the one I actually watch more. Don’t look at me like that, I’m just being honest, lol.

Anyway, if you hadn’t gathered, this just never really had much of a chance of appealing to me much. For me, it’s one of those movies whose only real contribution to cinema is its great theme, composed by Nino Rota. Whenever that’s playing, sure, the movie can’t help but grab me by the heartstrings and dance me up and down whichever way it wants, and I’m sure its Sixties audience were wooed as much by that as they were by the “shocking” “underage” “nudity” (whoa, inverted comma overload, lol). But the rest of the time, all I want is Leo and Claire. Or, as I said, West Side Story. It just feels too much like English lessons all over again, I’m afraid. I did shed a little tear at the end, though – I’m not totally dead inside, y’know Of course, Rota’s score was playing at that point too, though …

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 15th, 2007 at 2:39 am in 3 hearts, Movie Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.