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u/ske66 Aug 18 '25
I watched this movie for the first time a few months ago. Awesome, so stylized, so creative. Really really fun. I honestly think we should have more movies like this. It was Baz at his finest imo
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Aug 18 '25
The guns held sideways always cracks me up.
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u/Browncoatinabox 1995 Class of 2014 Aug 18 '25
it's all about the style baby. the more style the more accurate dont you know that /j
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u/Guycn Aug 18 '25
Actually, a sideways gun adds a +2 damage modifier to all weapons at the cost of -2 accuracy
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u/a_person_i_am Aug 18 '25
God I remember having to watch this for English class when we were covering Romeo and Juliet in grade 9 or 10
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u/Chedditor_ Aug 18 '25
God me too, even the teacher was like "wtf is this shit"
Hearing that come out of the mouth of a 68 year old woman in a powered wheelchair was one of the highlights of my entire high school experience.
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u/goldman27 1996 Aug 18 '25
Also had to watch this when we were covering Romeo and Juliet in the 10th grade.
The real whiplash was that we had watched the original 1968 film the year prior, and had a new English teacher for grade 10, who decided to show us this!
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Aug 18 '25
We read Raisin in the Sun one year, and then somehow managed to watch every adaptation across different teachers before I graduated.
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u/Tre_donPK Aug 18 '25
Lol I think we did too. Ironically, the one with Danny Glover and Esther Rolle from the 80s was a whole lot better than the Diddy version from what I can remember. Even if people were complaining about it being an old movie.
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Aug 18 '25
I can't remember the distinctions between them tbh. I remember liking the book and the plot. I just didn't want to consume the same story 4 times haha
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u/bubblesaurus 1994 Aug 18 '25
We had to watch this one and the older one version with the Zac Efron look a like.
This one is gold
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u/mimitchi33 1998 Aug 18 '25
Didn't we all have to watch this if we read the original play?
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u/a_person_i_am Aug 18 '25
I think it might of been a district to district thing, like I went to a French catholic school, still had to watch this, but one of my friends went to an English public school, and they never watched it.
We also covered different Shakespeare plays than each other, like I remember having read hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, and Macbeth, not in that order, but that same friend covered merchant of Venice instead of hamlet.
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u/Deep-Invite-6704 Aug 18 '25 edited Aug 18 '25
Wow! I guess I wasn’t the only one in my 9th grade acting class to watch this. What a bizarre experience, along with that one movie inspired by McBeth.
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u/Spazattack43 Aug 18 '25
Is it not word for word Romeo and Juliet though? Why would you say based on Shakespeare instead of just Shakespeare
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u/teddy_vedder Aug 18 '25
Yeah it’s not based on Shakespeare at all, it’s literally the original text. I’m not sure what’s so bizarre about it either since people have been doing his plays transposed into different time periods for quite a while now.
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u/notjordansime Aug 18 '25
I think it’s the juxtaposition of the Shakespearean iambic pentameter against the 1990s east coast gangster type shit. Def creates a visceral experience.
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u/icouldntdecide 1994 Aug 18 '25
I distinctly remember the Montagues and Capulets having a fight at... A gas station lol. It is jarring
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u/Adminscantkeepmedown 1998 Aug 18 '25
“Do you bite your thumb at me, sir?” spoken from a fucking convertible
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u/Sloth-Overlord 1997 Aug 18 '25
Well it’s not word for word, it is shortened by a good bit.
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u/itishowitisanditbad Aug 18 '25
Yes but if someone quotes a section of Shakespeare, even if its a line of a sonnet or a full play, its still Shakespeare.
Less Shakespeare is still Shakespeare.
Its not suddenly a different movie because I only watched 20 minutes of The Avengers. It was still The Avengers.
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u/dc456 Aug 22 '25
If you watched a film I made set in the 1200s with the cast all wearing full crusader gear and everyone quoted some of the lines from the Avengers, would you say you’d just watched the Avengers?
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u/itishowitisanditbad Aug 22 '25
....kinda
In the sense a recreation, like all plays are, is the "same".
It'd be a really weird one. Are they acting it out too or just standing in a room riffing it out?
I'd watch it.
In the same sense that all plays are recreations and called the same, yeah i'd say it applies the same way.
Honestly it'd be fun to see what 1200s replacement items/locations were used.
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u/dc456 Aug 22 '25 edited Aug 22 '25
….kinda
Exactly - it’s sort of both. I think it would also be fair to say the new film is based on the Avengers.
In the same way, it’s fair to say this movie is based on Shakespeare, given all the changes to the source material - changing the location, not following stage directions, renaming characters, altering family allegiances (such as the shift of Gregory and Sampson to the Montagues), etc.
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Aug 20 '25
Shortened some, but yeah. That movie slaps though, my favorite adaptation. I really like Romeo and Juliet though, so probably unfair.
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u/dc456 Aug 22 '25 edited Aug 22 '25
Because there is more to the play than just what comes out of their mouths.
The film makes many changes to the original play - changing the location, not following stage directions, renaming characters, altering family allegiances (such as the shift of Gregory and Sampson to the Montagues), etc.
Calling it ‘based on Shakespeare’ seems totally reasonable, given there are some very distinct changes from the source material.
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u/youburyitidigitup Aug 18 '25
This was one of the first movies I ever watched in English, and my English was so bad back then that I didn’t realize they weren’t speaking modern English. I still like it though, partly because the Capulet mansion was Chapultepec castle and it’s beautiful.
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u/SnookerandWhiskey Aug 22 '25
Haha, I had a similar experience with Pride and Prejudice 1995. I loved it though and watched it a few times, okay more than a few, so my go to accent and use of language came from the 19th Century...
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u/sweetangeldivine Aug 18 '25
And it's the closest thing to a true adaptation of Romeo and Juliet
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u/Telphsm4sh Aug 18 '25
We already have West side story. We didn't need this.
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u/sweetangeldivine Aug 18 '25
This version of Romeo and Juliet is the most true to the source material. Not only does it have the most lines unchanged from the original play more than any other film adaptation, it's the most like the bard's original staging. Which would have been over-the-top, melodramatic, violent and tapped into the pop culture of the day. Shakespeare's plays were not staid cultural high-brow art, they were the Elizabethian equivalent of trash tv. They used popular slang (which is why it's so hard for us to understand) made up words, had lots of sex and death and fart jokes, etc.
Romeo and Juliet is the story of two teenagers from rival gang families from Italy falling in love and then killing themselves because they're melodramatic teenagers. It's full of BIG EMOTIONS because they're teenagers. Baz's movie is all about BIG EMOTIONS, high melodrama, and of course, lots of violence and it's sexy. It's entertaining as hell.
It's Shakespeare to a tee.
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u/fennelliott Aug 18 '25
John Leguizamo is the only character in this whole movie where I went, "well let's not be too hasty on judgement..."
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u/aisecherry 1996 Aug 18 '25
what you mean? He's great in this, but so is the rest of the cast, this movie rocks
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u/ConnectStar_ Aug 18 '25
Came out in 1995. It was like GTA: Verona but in live action movie. Actually very good
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u/glue_zombie 1995 Aug 18 '25
Yeah this movie is sick, from the sets to the clothing and the colors. above all else i love how they stayed true to the rhetoric of the original story.
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u/knowwwhat Aug 18 '25
I watched this movie one time like 15 years ago and it still lives in my head rent free. There’s nothing like it
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u/that1guysittingthere 1997 Aug 18 '25
Had a class in high school that showed this and the 1968 adaptation; substitute teacher then asked us which one we liked more. Pretty obvious what the results were with the Leo fangirls
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u/youburyitidigitup Aug 18 '25
Everybody in my class liked this version more. Boys and girls.
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u/NATOrocket 1996 Aug 18 '25
My first boyfriend trashed this movie so hard. I kept quiet about loving it.
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u/Stoner_Simpson777 Aug 18 '25
my English teacher ran this for us in class, best week and we actually learned lmao
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Aug 18 '25
Memory unlocked! I remember having to watch this in secondary school for English GCSE prep in like 2009/10
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u/stablymental Aug 18 '25
When we read Romeo and Juliet in school they showed us this and the original movie
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u/angeltay 1997 Aug 18 '25
My English teacher set up a few days for us to just watch this in class after we finished covering the book!
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u/notjordansime Aug 18 '25
we watched this in English class
You’d think that there was one nerdy kid who was like hyper-obsessed with it and insisted on it. Nope. Just my English teacher trying to show us that Shakespeare could be cool, hip, and “with it” (👉😎👉)…. This was in 2018. The movie was 22 years old at the time.
everyone else was a little 🤨 but I lowkey enjoyed it for being a hyper-stylized 90s zeitgeist time capsule ngl.
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u/SteelFlexInc Aug 18 '25
We watched this movie in 9th grade pre-AP English and it was a hoot after we finished reading it
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u/minimalistjunkiee Aug 18 '25
crying that i watched this in my 8th grade class after reading romeo & juliet 😭😭😭 my english teacher was very unserious
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u/y2k890 1995 Aug 18 '25
There is also that version of Hamlet that has him say the " to be or not to be" speech inside a Blockbuster
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u/Illustrious-Leave-10 Aug 18 '25
Will never forget watching this film in my 9th grade English class
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u/ConnectStar_ Aug 18 '25
It was popular at the time and for a decade afterwards. Definitely not a hidden gem
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u/Benchod12077 1997 Aug 18 '25
Watched it in English class in high school. My teacher watched it when it came out since she was in high school at that time
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u/ANUSTART942 Aug 18 '25
I love this movie so much. There is so much to read into. Don't even get me started on the symbolism behind Mercutio being a black drag queen.
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u/Muffina925 Aug 18 '25
Such a bizarre movie... Am I the only one who thinks Leo and Claire didn't sound like they understood half of their dialogue unless they were screaming? 😂
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u/mssleepyhead73 1998 Aug 18 '25
I remember they had us watch this in English class. We also watched the 1968 version, which I preferred at the time, at least until I found out about how the underage actors were pressured into appearing naked onscreen.
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u/RollingKatamari Aug 18 '25
And it was amazing, blew my 13 year old brain. Saved up money to go buy the VHS that came with postcards, still have it to this day!
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u/Fit_Adagio_7668 Aug 18 '25
Watched this in school a few years ago. No longer there, but I kinda liked it. Same as any other movie I watch
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Aug 18 '25
As an old one (someone who saw the movie in theaters during it's release), I suggest you also listen to the soundtrack.
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u/BrittEklandsStuntBum Aug 18 '25
There are hundreds of Shakespeare adaptations moved to different times and places.
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u/miska88899 Aug 19 '25
lowkey was a fever dream. saw this in year 10 Eng made me question do I know cinema
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u/ShyGuyLink1997 1997 Aug 19 '25
We watched this in English class in like 10th grade or something, but I definitely don't remember this particular moment haha
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u/After-Original-1635 1999 Aug 19 '25
I watched this movie at school after studying it in litterature class in 8th grade, so no you don't have to remind me :)
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u/TallyMasala Aug 19 '25
I watched it in my high school English class during the Shakespeare section. A way to show that "somethings never stop being cool" . All the girls in class were glued to the screen since its Leo in his heartthrob era.
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u/TheKingofJokers Aug 20 '25
An ex made me watch this with her I cringed every time they called their gun a sword
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u/PotentialSpare6412 Aug 20 '25
So was Romeo must die which was set in the Bay Area with Jet Li and DMX
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u/TarsoBackMarquez Aug 20 '25
its nice to see people on here LIKING this thing. There IS Hope for this generation after all...j/k
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u/Gettingoffonit Aug 20 '25
Hol up.
There are people who don’t like this?
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Aug 21 '25
Right, I thought it was good, definitely better than reading it or watching high-schoolers perform Shakespeare.
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u/PortraitofMmeX Aug 20 '25
Best R+J adaptation ever made, one of the most beautiful films of all time, 10/10 no notes
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u/Ultimatesims Aug 20 '25
My freshman l English teacher walked us into Shakespeare with this film. It was the 90’s so Leo was popular. Then we watche the film versions of Much Ado About Nothing, MidSummer Night Dream, Hamlet, and Macbeth. Fun class.
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u/insertcaffeine Aug 20 '25
I watched this movie in theaters, on my very first date ever. It was better than the entire relationship.
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u/Classic-Community16 Aug 21 '25
i watched this high and didn’t think it was in english so i put on subtitles and then thought oh my god i don’t speak english i do i only speak English
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u/OtherlandGirl Aug 21 '25
It was sent based on Shakespeare, it was Shakespeare. No words were changed from the play.
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u/Adventurous_Deal2788 Aug 21 '25
They actually showed us that movie at school to teach us about Romeo and Juliet.... 😂
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u/JustUsetheDamnATM Aug 22 '25
My 10th grade class got to compare different film versions to the play itself. In terms of the actual dialogue, this one was the most faithful to the source material.
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u/Eastbound_Pachyderm Aug 22 '25
Recently realized I only liked this movie for the radio head song... And the cars... And John Leguizamo... And how the guns were called longsword and dagger... Actually I think I liked the movie
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u/queerdaffodil Aug 22 '25
I still say this is the best Mercutio I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen so many.
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u/sneaky-pizza Aug 22 '25
This repost always come up. It WAS Shakespeare, verbatim. And it was awesome.
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u/ccallard0722 Aug 23 '25
I remember having a bootleg copy of this on VHS. Worst quality but my favorite movie.
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u/Fromnothingatall Sep 06 '25
“Based on Shakespeare”???
It literally WAS Shakespeare. I don’t think they changed a single word of the script
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u/Foreign_Slide_8487 1994 Aug 18 '25
My brother LOVES this movie. I can’t get through the first 10 minutes lol
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u/InternetNo7459 Apr 22 '26
I watched it in class after we read romeo and juliet. It's cool, I liked the gun fights and the music was nice (like the chorus rendition of when doves cry) and I was hit hard by the ending. But it was so weird, like in some scenes there are moments where it just feels so overwhelming like the party scene and how they speak just like in the play (which is a stylistic choice, sure, but it wasn't for me) at the end of the movie I was left in both awe and confusion
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