Romeo and Juliet Reviewed

I have never seen anything remotely approaching the mess that the new punk version of ``Romeo & Juliet'' makes of Shakespeare's tragedy.

The desperation with which it tries to ``update'' the play and make it ``relevant'' is greatly depressing. In one grand but doomed gesture, writer-director Baz Luhrmann has made a film that (a) will dismay any lover of Shakespeare, and (b) bore anyone lured into the theater by promise of gang wars, MTV-style. This production was a very bad idea.

I chose this review because of our discussion in class and because I saw both movies, the original and the re-make. I was wondering which movie people liked the best.