JULIET & ROMEO - Mark Reviews Movies

Juliet & Romeo, Briarcliff Entertainment

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Review by Mark Dujsik | May 8, 2025

A musical version of the story of Romeo and Juliet could work, and it has, of course, in opera and loose variations of the story in musical theater. In fact, a direct musical adaptation of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet might succeed in the right hands, since the play alternates between poetry and prose, and after all, a soliloquy is as much a convention of theater to express hidden thoughts and emotions as a solo song in a musical.

In theory, the idea of Juliet & Romeo, a version of the story that incorporates original pop music into the narrative, isn't as ridiculous as might sound. The movie itself, though, is a misfire on more levels than one might anticipate.

It looks cheap, for one thing, appearing as if writer/director Timothy Scott Bogart rented the grounds, props, and costumes of a Renaissance fair for several days. What light through yonder window breaks in this production? It looks to be a few bright, blue LED rigs, aimed directly at the actors and often flaring on the camera lens, and when the cast isn't drowning in cool light, they're somehow cast in a reddish hue of dimness. Either way, nothing and nobody is shot in a particularly romantic light.

Maybe, that's for the best. The actual story is pulled from Shakespeare, in the manner of dentistry without any numbing agent, but the dialogue can be entirely blamed on Bogart, who has some of the most beautiful words ever written in English at his disposable and, strangely, has determined to dispose of most of them. Oh, there are references to Shakespeare's play, especially characters repeatedly asking, "What's in a name?" There are also single lines in the script that refer to other plays by the Bard. At a certain point, one may start to wonder if the filmmaker has actually read the source material, not just a summary, or if one's own memory of Shakespeare's catalogue has been subconsciously jumbled by witnessing what's on the screen.

This, according to the Friar (Derek Jacobi), is the real version of the story that has been passed down through history. Our star-crossed lovers, Romeo (Jamie Ward) and Juliet (Clara Rugaard), are already dead during the movie's introduction, which isn't a spoiler for two reasons. The first, of course, is that this is the most famous tragic love story of all time. The second cannot be revealed, because the thought of what the actual ending is, suggests, and somehow promises in the future is simply too painfully dumb to recall.

As the two young lovers from warring families speak in such a way that doesn't sound natural in any period (especially the movie's setting of 14th century Verona), they and the rest of cast occasionally break into song, too. The songs are generic on their own, basically copying the over-produced sound of the most bland modern pop has to offer, and terrible within the context of this story, because they're not specific to the setting (There are multiple references to a parachute in one, which is quite the bit of foresight on the part of our main duo), the characters, or the story itself.

There's one in which the central women of the cast, including Rebel Wilson as Juliet's mother, sing a relay of sorts about how difficult it is be a woman or something, and it almost sounds as if each actor has been dubbed by the same singer belting at three different octaves. Romeo has a duet with his doomed friend Mercutio (Nicholas Podany), whose wetly hammy death scene almost must be seen to be believed (At one point, the character seems to break the fourth wall to make sure everyone hears his most iconic line), and there's a similar effect. Some of the actors must have performed their own singing, although it's tough to tell since it's blatantly obvious everyone is lip-syncing on set—some slightly more convincingly than Dan Fogler as the Apothecary, who gets a pseudo-rap number to explain his various potions.

Most of the tunes, though, are about love, naturally, and, naturally, are treacle. That's probably reason enough alone to dismiss Juliet & Romeo as a vapid exercise in pointlessly attempting to modernize this tale, but without even mentioning the convoluted lengths to which Bogart goes to change the entire point and purpose of the story by the end, the entire production is a grandly misguided failure.

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