Romeo Must Die!.... but he doesn't... and neither does any other major character

This weeks installment features the play Romeo and Juliet by one Billy Shakes and the movie Romeo Must Die starring Jet Li and Aaliyah. The play is a timeless classic, one of Shakespeare's many tragedies and a story that has inspired probably thousands of adaptations. The tale of star crossed lovers forbidden to be together but fight to make it happen no matter what is too irresistible and universal to ignore. Almost anyone can relate and honestly it's a formula that never gets old. I say formula because it kind of is. Male from one faction, female from other faction, both factions hate each other and have been fighting for years, male meets female, falls in love, families fight to keep them apart, the end up together in the end and the families see the error of their ways, the end. It can be applied to almost any situation and the storyteller can go wild within this formula and never touch the core story. A classic for the ages.

Many of the modern adaptations that are put out there are mostly loose adaptations and sometimes intermediate, very few films have been close adaptations. I think the main reason for this is that in a Shakespearean tragedy everyone dies at the end except for one person to tell the story and that is kind of a downer. So most adaptation tend opt out of all the death and go for the more happy ending when the lovers can be together and rivalries are over.

That is what Romeo Must Die did. It is a loose adaptation that took their story and plugged in some key elements from the play. They had a "Romeo" and a "Juliet", they had the warring families aaaaand.... that's about it. I would have to say this film was an analogy bordering on a commentary. The only direct allusion to the play is the title, but there isn't even a Romeo in the film. Also the relationship between the two main characters wasn't very believable. Other than some light flirting, there was never really any moments between them that showed me they had fallen in love. They seemed like good buddies at the end, not lovers. It sometimes feels that they realized they story was similar to Romeo and Juliet about half way through filming and then decided to put Romeo in the title so they weren't called on copying the play, instead they made it look like an adaptation. Fun movie to watch but too much just didn't make sense.