SEALED SEALED
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I don’t want rub anymore salt in the wound, but Romeo And Juilet: Sealed With A Kiss opened today in several theaters in Southern California with the most horrendous review I have ever read in the L.A. Times. Registration may be required to access the Times webpage, so I’ll post some choice quotes from the review by Sam Adams:

A genuine tragedy, although not in the Shakespearean sense…A comprehensive list of what’s wrong with “Romeo & Juliet: Sealed With a Kiss” would stretch farther than the unabridged works of William S. But it begins with the notion of a just-for-kids take on a play whose climax is a double suicide. Don’t worry: There’s no dying here. Just an unending torture, 77 minutes that feel longer than an uncut Hamlet.The massacre of great drama might be at least forgivable were “Sealed With a Kiss” not so manifestly shoddy. The radioactive hues of Nibbelink’s blobby, graceless animation sear the eye like an atom blast… most of the movie’s voices are so heavily post-processed in an attempt to sound “funny” that what’s left of Shakespeare’s dialogue is rendered nearly unintelligible… In an astonishing display of poor taste, Nibbelink periodically breaks up the mushy stuff with scenes of Mercutio barking insults at his rival tribe – insults that are most often racist jokes with the offending epithet replaced by the word “Capulet” (i.e. “What do you call 500 Capulets on the bottom of the ocean?” “A good start.”)… That’s not suitable for all ages – it’s suitable for no one.

Strangly enough, the TIMES review actually makes me wanna go see it. To be fair, the LA WEEKLY was a little kinder. Luke Thompson there simply sums it up like this:

This is one odd concoction, which should find its primary audience among college potheads who like to watch ’70s Hanna-Barbera creations on the Cartoon Network late at night.

Jerry Beck

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