The audacity. The wishful thinking. The misguided lunacy. The plug-my-ears these songs are generic. There’s so many accusations to chuck at this flick that it’s almost tough to point out the volume of other wild-eyed adaptations of any Shakespeare play that already exist. But this film tries real hard to paint a target on its back… and I doubt it even realizes it.

Juliet & Romeo is the exact same story you already know, only now with her name first. It doesn’t make this a Rosencrantz & Guildenstern like retelling that puts a riot grrl Juliet at the fore though. No, this is largely just the story you know, with just as much Romeo, only now with modern dialog and <gulp> even more pop songs.

One of those songs IS a girl power type ballad where all the female characters bemoan their place in this world. But mostly everything else is the same and not from Juliet’s POV at all. Not any more than is already in the play, which doesn’t lack for Juliet representation.

The one big change made is a weird desire to fill in the gaps that good old Willy Shakes left in his 500 year old play. For example, Romeo & Juliet meet at least twice before their first official meeting at the ball. So, you know, not love at first sight. Or if you’ve ever wondered why the apothecary had that poison on hand, well this flick spends a solid ten minutes explaining it… and there’s a song! Because otherwise it wouldn’t be “realistic”, I guess.

All that’s not as crazy and audacious as the new ending. It’s hard to justify this change and it insults Willy Shakes and all the play’s fans. I won’t go into detail but it does circle back to my original paragraph above. This film was written by the kings of wishful thinking.

Because it pulls an It: Chapter 1… revealing at the end that this is, in fact, Juliet & Romeo Part 1 and we should all be waiting with baited breath for part 2. Yes. Part 2. Maybe that’s when Juliet flexes her muscles and justifies the title change? I dunno… but it’d hard to get a sequel when the lovers are dead and rotting in a box.. Right? RIGHT?!

So… i didn’t technically spoil anything except some sequel baiting… but you can probably fill in the blanks.

This is a pretty muddle-headed adaptation. In that it’s just Romeo & Juliet with modern dialog is hardly the first time that’s ever been done. In that they felt the need to “fix” Romeo & Juliet’s plot holes might go a step too far. Adding pop songs out of a Disney movie? Maybe two steps. The new ending… we just took a long walk off a short pier.

Score: 69