His point is not to distract you from the words, as Zeffirelli did, but to lead you to them. Luhrmann cuts the text as well, though not as damagingly. The film was a smash, though Zeffirelli cut the text severely to make up for the inadequacies of his otherwise-appealing actors. Rector Franco Zeffirelli stuck to the language and the period in his 1968 film Romeo and Juliet but livened things up by casting young leads - Olivia Hussey, 15, and Leonard Whiting, 17 - and showcasing enough codpieces and cleavage to have censors crying kiddie porn. Iambic pentameter in this pulp context may throw you at first, but hang on. Luhrmann and his Aussie co-writer, Craig Pearce, stick with the Bard’s funny way of talking. But all those productions threw out Shakespeare’s language. It’s been made over as a ballet, as a Broadway musical and Oscarwinning movie ( West Side Story), and as a 1987 Abel Ferrara gang film ( China Girl). Of course, messing with Romeo and Juliet is nothing new. Luhrmann, known as a wizard in his native Oz, where he stages plays and operas, relishes knocking cobwebs off classics. The rabid flamboyance of Luhrmann’s vision, remarkably accented by Kym Barrett’s costumes and Catherine Martin’s production design, is meant to make Romeo and Juliet accessible to the elusive Gen X audience without leaving the play bowdlerized and broken. If your head isn’t spinning yet, it will. Shot in Mexico in a style that might be called retrofuturistic, since it encompasses castles and armor, as well as bulletproof vests and boomboxes, the film reworks Shakespeare in a frenzy of jump cuts that makes most rock videos look like MTV on Midol.

Welcome to mythical Verona Beach, where the gangs fire on each other, and soldiers in choppers fire on them. No dialogue, just gunshots, as two gang families - the Montagues and the Capulets (each has its name in lights on the roof of a high-rise) - go to war. It’s a good thing that Shakespeare gets his name in the title, or you might mistake the opening scenes for Quentin Tarantino’s Romeo and Juliet. These babes from the TV woods - he started in Growing Pains she emerged in My So–Called Life - fill their classic roles with vital passion, speak the Elizabethan verse with unforced grace, find the spirited comedy of the play without losing its tragic fervor and keep their balance when the audacious Australian director Baz Luhrmann ( Strictly Ballroom) hurls them into a whirlwind of hardball action, rowdy humor and rapturous romance. The laughter comes from delight and awe at how well DiCaprio and Danes pull off the trick. You almost laugh watching them put a hip, hotblooded spin on the Bard’s star-crossed lovers. Leonardo Dicaprio is 21, Claire Danes is 17, and, yes, class, they do get naked in William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

Romeo Juliet by William Shakespeare