This punk version of Shakespeare’s classic story “Romeo + Juliet” is a sad mixture of uneven concepts thrown together. It’s done in an exaggerated Quentin Tarantino style of the classic story by one of history’s most well-loved writers William Shakespeare.

The story, if you didn’t know, is about two rival families, the Capulets and the Montagues (think of them like the Autobots and the Decepticons in “Transformers” if you kids need a more modern reference). Romeo (Leonardo DiCaprio “Inception”) is a Montague but he falls desperately in love with the Capulet’s Juliet (Claire Danes “Stardust”) and so they try to find a way to keep their forbidden love. However, differences in their families force them to take desperate measures to ensure they’re together.

Leonardo DiCaprio is a great actor (although not in some of his films such as “Critters 3”) and I think he’s great as Romeo. Claire Danes, who I don’t normally like, is actually good as Juliet. John Leguizamo (“Spawn”, “The Super Mario Bros. Movie”) is appalling as Tybalt. I don’t really like John Leguizamo as an actor. I find him obnoxious and irritatingly like a rash. To be honest, most of the cast weren’t too good. All the dialog is taken straight from the play so it looks really weird when you see people in more modern clothing saying all the old-fashioned lines.

“Romeo + Juliet” does have some good moments but it just feels plain weird. The dialog works better than I thought it would but it still looks incredibly out of place with what is onscreen. It just seems silly when things like when they use words such as ‘sword’, which originally meant sword, is used instead of ‘gun’. Also, if you aren’t familiar with the story, this’ll confuse you with its weird parts that use the same dialog but feel very different to other versions. Also, near the beginning, there is a segment that was almost like a trailer for the film and with lots of ridiculous editing. The film feels very overdone and that is its most significant flaw.