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Title: Takes me back...
Review: ..to ninth grade English! Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes sound like they merely read the lines (even haltingly at times), not understand and feel them. The only redeeming things about this are the sets, so wonderfully overabundant at times it's dreamlike, and the characters of Tybalt and Mercutio. One other thing is the mostly successful attempt to update the play. This version is nothing compared to the 1968 Franco Zeffirelli one, with the hauntingly beautiful Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting, who combine the innocence and shyness of adolesence with its overwhelming emotion, every line and look bleeding with it. The DiCaprio/Danes movie is a poor version of a great play. I rented it again recently, to see if it got better, but I cringed whenever Romeo and Juliet talked. It's really too bad.
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