Romeo and Juliet

I remember watching this movie when it first came out. I was 16 years old and watched it in the theater with Kara, my best friend. I'm not sure why we went to this movie, maybe because Leonardo diCaprio is cute? In any case, I didn't remember too much about it, so when I recently watched and enjoyed that other modern shakeup of a Shakespearean classic, Titus, I thought maybe I should give this version of Romeo and Juliet another try. Sooooo, it wasn't as good as Titus. Baz Luhrmann always does that sped up annoying camera thing and he was just trying a little too hard to be hip. Overall, it felt too glossy and shallow and unreal; the music was jarring. Leo is a good actor but even the most emotional scenes felt a little comical because it was so hard to take anything seriously. That was the problem, nothing felt quite serious enough. But it is difficult to completely mess up material this good, and a bit of the feeling did come through. Rate **