There's bright colours and shouting, and emphasis put on every footstep and gun cocking. It's big, it's bombastic, it's completely lacking in subtlety. It's beautiful and ugly all at the same time, as Tybalt, the Prince of Cats falls on his knees dramatically, pulls out his pistols, attaches an excessive sight, and takes aim at the fleeing Montagues. The saturation is turned way up, the camera shakes and zooms uncontrollably, the editing cuts every second or two. After an exchange of insults, they break out in a gun fight. If the Montagues gave the instant impression of good guys having fun, the Capulets give the immediate impression of brooding and serious antagonists. They pull up to a gas station and encounter the rival Capulet boys, clad in dark blues and leather, with clean-cut facial hair and a menacing glare. We're then introduced to the Montague boys, clad in Hawaiian shirts left open to flap in the wind, riding a bright yellow topless jeep. Between them is a giant statue of Jesus himself, almost as tall as these skyscrapers. It opens with a newscast acting as the narrator, followed by quick-cuts and flybys of a city centre framed by two imposing skyscrapers, each with the name of a respected mafia-like family conglomerate plastered over the roof. You could probably trace a line from all late-90s fashions back to this movie, either creating the stereotypical aesthetic of the time, or merely doubling down and reinforcing it. Or at least, the teenagers of the late 90s. So Luhrmann takes this timeless classic, and decides to transplant it into a modern day setting to appeal to modern day teenagers. It's a hormonal barrage of narrative cues. It's the type of story that has endured so long precisely because it appeals to us at the most emotional and vulnerable time of our lives, speaking to how we feel about the world around us. It's a tale quite literally as old as time: Star-crossed lovers finding each other against all odds, fighting to keep what they have against the forces around them, and the near-miss of longevity, like every Rom-Com airport scene.
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It's chock full of the same hallmarks of modern day teen dramas beautiful teens from wealthy families, sudden and passionate love affairs, with a dash of violence and murder, capped off with an emotional gut-punch or two. And yet Baz Luhrmann went in with a very specific approach, not only to modernise it while maintaining the poetic dialogue, but to also make it enticing for a teenage audience the audience most arguably suited to the tale of Romeo and Juliet. It's as much Shakespeare as any other adaptation over the centuries. And that's pretty much how I'm going to judge it today.
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Like many who saw this as a teenager, this was a movie that felt like the most sophisticated thing I'd ever seen, while also being accessible enough to my immature brain.
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