Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

I know that precious images are going to be an essential part of a Franco Zeffirelli film. And Romeo and Juliet is no exception but, there is something else here and I don't mean Shakespeare. There is a real palpitating heart at the center of this perennial romantic tragedy and I believe that the heart belongs to Zeffirelli. Leonard Whiting is breathtakingly beautiful and young, so young as young as the Romeo in Shakespeare's play and Olivia Hussey's Juliet is not only impossibly gorgeous but I could believe that she is prepared to risk it all for the love of her Romeo. Verona with her dusty streets is a character in itself. Danilo Donati's costumes and the score by Nino Rota complete this exquisite Shakespearean film by one of the great aestheticians of the 20th Century.

In keeping up the tradition of Shakespeare Month, I am very proud to say that this is my favorite movie of the month so far! I believe I saw this movie earlier in a literature class. As the film is so long, I'm fairly certain I only saw the first half of it, so I took this opportunity to see the second half. This was released in 1968, which was the year that MPAA ratings were created. You can actually totally tell. This movie is rated PG and actually has a brief scene of a topless woman. Wow, could not get away with that today. The weird thing is that I heard Olivia Hussey was not allowed to see this movie because of her own breasts.Yeah, it does make me think about the age old question of if children who act in R-rated films are allowed to see them (and doesn't that violate child labor laws?). Of course, the actors in this movie weren't really kids which makes it all the weirder that there was this restriction. The best thing about this movie is probably how long it is. It's the longest Shakespeare adaptation I've ever seen and not a single minute is wasted. It's obviously very loyal to the source material and we get to see all the elements of the classic story here. I think my favorite part about this story in general is the end.Romeo and Juliet have committed suicide and this finally brings their families to stop bickering. The story is a tragedy, but at least it ends up doing more good than harm...I guess. The sets are great and this was also the same time that movies were making the transition to color. Everything really does look gorgeous in this movie. This probably is the version that you should show to a literature class. Oh, notice how I didn't put spoilers in this? I'm pretty sure everyone knows how this ends. ****

An accurate depiction of how Shakespearean literature was brought into a live dramatic tragedy film. Even though they skipped through the text numerous times in the film, they still stayed true to the whole story. The film was able to bring these characters to life and presents how forbidden love Shakespeare intended to be. The visual appearance brings out the tone in the play and actually expresses the emotions of each character more expressively which can be appealing to the audience. Also, the setting gives out a stunning impact that also gives out the mood of every scene that is shown. Even being such an old film it still watchable and entertaining. I highly recommend this movie.

I haven't seen this movie for 40 years. I had always remembered it as a great movie. I had been waiting for a Blu-ray version, but I finally gave up and decided to see the DVD version.The movie was a mixed bag for me. I still love the sets and most of the acting. The audio, however, was so bad that it seriously distracted from the movie. If the audio was equal to the sets and acting, I would raise my rating to a 9. As it is, I can only give it a 6.There were three things that were particularly bad. First the speaking parts seemed to have all the bad quality of a dubbed movie. It appears that the actors were all speaking in English, but the soundtrack sounded as if it was all dubbed. All of the speaking parts reminded me of "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly". The second problem (for me) was the overly emotive sobbing of Juliet throughout many of her scenes. Again, it was if the scenes were filmed and then the parts were spoken later in a recording studio. Maybe this is the way all movies are made, but it was bad enough to make me cringe each time Juliet started the sobbing. The third problem was the use of orchestra music in the background of many scenes. This may just be the norm for 1968-era movies, but it now sounds wrong.