Juliet & Romeo

My sister and I are not the biggest fans of Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet but, as soon as we saw the trailer for a new adaptation, we knew immediately that we wanted to see it because it is a musical!  We had the chance to see it yesterday and both of our inner thirteen year old selves loved it.  Prince Escalus (Rupert Graves) is fighting to keep control of Verona and he must ally himself with either House Montague or House Capulet to get the support he needs and this escalates the ongoing feud between them.  Lord Montague (Jason Isaacs) looks to his adopted son Mercutio (Nicholas Podany) to advance the cause because his son Romeo (Jamie Ward) has started to rebel while Lord and Lady Capulet (Rupert Everett and Rebel Wilson, respectively) bring their unsuspecting daughter Juliet (Clara Rugaard) home from school to form an alliance with Lord Paris (Dennis Andres) in exchange for his army.  Romeo spots Juliet across a crowded square and they bond over their appreciation of Dante Alighieri.  They eventually fall in love and, when they learn that they represent opposing houses, they turn to the Friar (Derek Jacobi) who sees their union as a way to achieve peace and he marries them.  However, when violence erupts on the streets leading to the deaths of Mercutio and Tybalt (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo), Romeo is banished and he must resort to a bold plan involving the Apothecary (Dan Fogler) in order to be with Juliet.  This takes quite a few liberties with the source material, including a really wild ending, and this would normally bother me but the changes work within the context of a story about choosing your own destiny.  I did start to get restless during the third act when Juliet decides to take the potion and Romeo misses the message from the Friar but I always find this section of the play tedious when it is performed on stage so I can't fault the movie for it.  The songs do start to blend together and they definitely have a Disney teen movie pop sound but I enjoyed them (see the aforementioned comment about my inner thirteen year old self) and I suspect that teens everywhere (the target audience) will love them.  My favorites are "Beat the Same," "I Should Write This Down," "The Mask I Wear," and "Streets On Fire."  Ward and Rugaard are very appealing and have great chemistry as the titular characters and I also liked Jacobi as the Friar because he acts as a sort of narrator.  The visuals are gorgeous, with production design by Dante Ferreti and costume design by Luciano Capozzi (I loved the masquerade ball), and the cinematography is dazzling (especially the overhead shots of the fight between Mercutio and Tybalt on the bridge).  I know that everyone is going to hate this but, to me, it was a bit of escapist fun and my sister and I had a blast watching it.