recently one night a young director named baz luhrmann couldn't sleep . 
he tumbled out of bed and moved over to the television where he watched mtv for an hour . 
then he moved to his kitchen where he spent the same amount of time eating spoiled food . 
then he took down a volume of shakespeare's work and read it cover to cover - never really paying attention to the words or plot . 
and then , as a climax , he took out his video camera and pressed the " on " button . 
the result ? 
william shakespeare's romeo + juliet - the worst film ever made and a complete failure . 
though , to be fair , an interesting complete failure . 
the idea at the film's core is to make shakespeare appealing to the crowds . 
this is done by moving the camera around at a rapid rate so that we can't see what is going on . 
and filming the dialogue in voice over . 
and shooting leonardo dicaprio like a calvin klein model . 
and making the frame go still while flashing the character's name at the bottom . 
and filming long tedious action sequences in slow motion . 
i mean , man , this is the 90s , dude . 
however i've seen terrible films that are fun to watch . 
 ( examples are batman and robin and the island of doctor moreau . 
 ) that rule doesn't apply here . 
this is a film that takes itself seriously . 
that is it's major fault . 
another problem was pointed out by my friend , alex ( who was singing songs by leonard bernstein throughout . 
 ) ; the original play is a powerful piece of work because the author remained neutral and didn't take sides . 
here it's clear that we are supposed to side with romeo . 
 ( just look at the way they film him . 
 ) from the begining he's our hero and this doesn't work . 
and dicaprio's awful performance doesn't help . 
luhrmann never decides if he wants to entertain us or enlighten us . 
the result is a mess . 
you can feel him striving to be something he isn't . 
he tries to pull of a mix in which drag queens are filmed from purposefully arty angles . 
he tries very hard . 
key word : tries . 
 " oh look , he's filming above water action from below . 
pretty . 
what does it represent ? " 
why do people do ugly things ? 
i scrambled away from my tv set feeling guilty as if i could never read the play again and keep a straight face .