Romeo and Juliet movie Review

                                                   Romeo and Juliet Review
Title of the play: Romeo and Juliet
Director: Baz Luhrmann
Reviewed Date: Oct. 30th. 2017
Location: Field house G3, Cheshire Academy

Main characters: Romeo-Jesse Bradford, Juliet-Claire Danes, Nurse-Miriam Margolyes, Tybalt-John Leguizamo, Friar Lawrence-Pete Postlethwaite, Lord Capulet-Paul Sorvino, Prince(Police)-Vondie Curtis-Hall, Mercutio-Harold Perrineau
   The movies talks about the love occurred in feud families. By an accidental opportunity, the young man Romeo met and fell in love with Juliet, who was the daughter of Lord Capulets, the biggest enemy of Montagues. They got married secretly in front of Romeo's friend, friar Lawrence. When Juliet's cousin, Tybalt, knew this, he could not endure and wanted to kill Romeo. Tybalt did find Romeo, but instead of fighting with him, he fought with Romeo's friend, Mercutio, who was the relative of the king in Verona. He killed Mercutio which makes Romeo crazy and Romeo accidentally killed him. Because of this, Romeo was exiled by the prince and Juliet planned to escape from her parents and fled to Romeo. Although all was planned, things started to go wrong which led to the death of Romeo and Juliet. At the end, prince told two houses that both of them would be punished. In the movie, the main themes are Love, violence, and status. Love fills up with the movie. When Romeo went to find Juliet at night, they kissed and embraced each other in the pool, this shows love. Also when Romeo got the news that he would be exiled, Romeo and Juliet both cried for each others, because they would not be together once Romeo was exiled. And the last scene, when Juliet found out that Romeo died in her arms, she suicide quickly, in order to be with Romeo in heaven. All of these shows that love is the main theme in this movie. Violence also occurred in the movie a lot. When Mercutio was killed by Tybalt, Romeo took out his gun and shot Tybalt. Also when Juliet told Lord Capulet that she did not want to marry Paris, Lord Capulet was mad and slapped her. In the movie, there are a lot of fights between those two houses. Also the status, appeared in the movie. Lord Capulet demanded his daughter, Juliet, to marry with the noble Paris; when Juliet refused him, he slapped him and cursed her. When the nurse and lady Capulet tried to help Juliet, Lord Capulet cursed them also. It shows that at that time, children have to obey their parents' demand. In the interviews with the director Baz Luhrmann, it says that he was just re-reveal what Shakespeare did for the new generation. In the movie, it has evidence show that it is in a modern world. When they say to take out the sword, they actually take out the guns; the two houses were represented by two skyscrapers; Also the transportations in the movie are mostly cars. Director makes those changes so that teenagers right now would like to watch it, and it is not that boring.
   Sound/Music, color scheme, and lighting upgrade the movie to a new level. Color scheme is used to show a certain type of feelings to the audience. When Romeo and Juliet are both looking at the aquarium, the color of water is blue, it highlights the beauty of Juliet. Also before the party, Romeo is sitting in front of the sunset, the orange color makes him look so lonely. It shows that he is a person who wants to seek for his love. The music, also makes the movie better. When Romeo and Juliet are kissing each other in the pool, the background music is so romantic, which makes the audience jump into the plot. Another example will be the death of Tybalt. When Romeo found out that Mercutio was killed, he was furious and drove his car to find Tybalt. The music was wild and crazy, which makes the audience know the feeling of Romeo at that time. Lighting in the movie can highlights or deepen the certain scenes. When Romeo realized that he killed Tybalt, he fled to friar's house and waiting for the judgement from the prince. When friar brought the bad news, outside of the house was suddenly lightning and thundering; it shows to the audience that how bad the exile was for Romeo. In the play, the music, color, and sound mostly happens on Romeo and Juliet. Montagues and Capulets are standing at the opposite by showing two skyscrapers.
   In the movie, one of my favorite character is the nurse(Miriam Margolyes). Nurse's act is funny, and she also care about others a lot. When nurse got back home with the news from Romeo, Juliet was anxious and kept urging nurse. Then, nurse would pretend it was a pretty long way to find Romeo which made Juliet to comfort her; this is humorous. Also, when she knew that Tybalt died, she cried a lot, and I think it was just like a normal person in daily life.
   Overall, I think it is a pretty good movie. The music is great, and the act of characters is fantastic. But it still has something to work on, which is the scene that both Romeo and Juliet died. Juliet awoke but Romeo did not see it. The scene was not realistic and it looks fool. From this movie, I learned that the color and music could show the emotion to the audience; so finding a proper music and color scheme really improve level of the movie or play.