On May 9th, a new movie musical titled Juliet & Romeo, came out in theaters. The musical follows the classic tale of Shakespeare’s star-crossed lovers, Romeo and Juliet, and their feuding families.
The character of Juliet is played by Clara Rugaard, while Romeo is played by Jamie Ward. The runtime of this movie is 122 minutes, including 15 songs total in the musical, amounting to about fifty minutes of song in this movie. Although the newest adaptation of this tale has sparked curiosity for fans of the other adaptations, this movie doesn’t have popular reviews by many who decide to watch.
In fact, an article from SCREENRANT says, “Many unfavorable reviews for Juliet & Romeo are cementing it as one of the worst adaptations of Shakespeare’s works in modern cinema, if not in history.”
To add onto the negative comments on the movie, many say that the story was uninteresting, and that the music, along with the choreography, were bland and uninteresting to watch. Even the choice of costumes was criticized by watchers. The Rotten Tomato score was a whopping 18% at the debut of this film and has only increased slightly since then, to a 24%.
Reading reviews on Google didn’t help the situation very much either. There were two sides of the spectrum.
The five-star review: “Beautifully produced movie, a colorful interpretation of a well-known story turned creatively into a musical. Wonderful to see a young cast working alongside well-known actors that nailed it. Highly recommend the cinema experience,” said Daniela Grech.
Then there were the one-star reviews: “God awful movie, I wanted to rip my ears off and eyes for this one. Never have I ever hated a movie like this one. I’m watching YouTube in the theater so I don’t waste my money watching this horrible movie,” said Alivia Kentnoe.
Overall, this new movie musical doesn’t have many high hopes. However, this does call attention to other adaptations of this tale, such as the famous 1996 movie, Romeo + Juliet, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, or the 2013 version, Romeo & Juliet, with Douglas Booth.
