I’ve heard it said that “Romeo and Juliet” has never really closed. Legend has it that ever since Shakespeare wrote the play, there’s been at least one theater company somewhere in the world bringing these characters to the stage. I have no idea if that’s actually true, but I shouldn’t be surprised if it is.

This is, after all, perhaps the most definitive work of romantic tragedy in all of English literature. It’s a truly timeless tale that (when presented correctly) so poignantly depicts the flighty and foolish nature of love, especially young love. The captivating inner turmoil of these characters has often been imitated, but never — with the arguable exception of West Side Story — been duplicated. Add in some comedy with a fair bit of action, and you’ve got a classic for the ages.

In case it isn’t clear yet (or in case you missed my write-ups on Julie Taymor’s The Tempest), I have a deep appreciation for Shakespeare. I love his works in general and I love “Romeo and Juliet” in particular. I studied the play in high school, and I’ve easily seen my share of stage productions. I’ve seen the play set in Elizabethan times, and I’ve seen it modernized. I’ve seen it with great actors, bad actors, and casts that were anywhere in between. I never could pass up a good opportunity to see a presentation of this play when it was convenient to do so, which meant that someday, I was inevitably going to see Romeo + Juliet.

I admit that I didn’t know a lot about this movie going in, aside from the fact that our titular leads were played by Leo DiCaprio and Claire Danes. I also knew that this was directed and co-written by Baz Luhrmann as part of his “Red Curtain Trilogy,” comprised of three otherwise unconnected movies with an “old-time theater” motif. On top of that, each of the three movies was built around a specific way for storytellers and fictional characters to convey their emotions to the audience. Strictly Ballroom, for example, was about expression through the art of dance. In Moulin Rouge!, the characters share their feelings by bursting into song. In between these two movies was Romeo + Juliet, with the immortal and universally-known words of Shakespeare representing the use of dialogue.

Of these three movies, the only one I’d seen before was Moulin Rouge!, and that was quite some time ago. I have no idea what I’d think of it after all this practice of honing my skill as a critic, but according to memory, everything in that movie was done to excess. The production design was flashy and colorful, the musical numbers were loud and bombastic, and the cast overacted to a cartoonish degree. And believe it or not, that gave me hope for Romeo + Juliet. After all, this is a play that literally lives and dies on its passion. The whole point of these characters is that they’re so deeply ruled by such primal emotions as love and hatred that they don’t realize the catastrophe they’re headed for until it’s too late. There’s just no way to do this play with subtlety and expect it to be done well.

So I popped in the DVD and was treated to a shot of a TV screen. The prince’s opening monologue was being done by a news anchor, which I thought was pretty clever. It was a smart way of presenting the monologue in a modern way that was unobtrusive and fresh without resorting to voice-over. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad.

…And even before I knew what hit me, I was listening to the exact same monologue being read by a standard “trailer voice” (you know the type), while title cards and quick flashes of violence bombarded the screen. The quick cuts kept going for a minute or two before smash-cutting to the title, and I thought that I had cued up the movie’s trailer by mistake. But no, the movie kept on going after the title.

This is when I started to think I might be in trouble.

Then came the initial Montague/Capulet confrontation, with Jamie Kennedy playing one of the Montagues. There were redundant title cards to introduce the characters, along with worthless close-ups of props and costume pieces. The acting was so heightened that it shot past comedy and right back around to being pathetic. The threats at action were so heightened that I couldn’t take anything seriously. And then John Leguizamo was introduced as Tybalt.

This is when I seriously thought about stopping the DVD, because I knew I was in trouble.

Sure enough, it became obvious very quickly that Luhrmann had absolutely no idea how to present Shakespeare’s dialogue effectively, much less how to modernize it. The fight scenes are laughable in how inept they are. Countless line deliveries fall flat. There are musical numbers that look garishly out of place. Hell, when Juliet surfaces for the balcony scene, she isn’t in the balcony. How the fuck does a director so badly screw up one of the most famous scenes in theatre history?!

This movie’s Romeo is another quite visible demonstration of the director’s incompetence. It’s obvious that DiCaprio had the talent and the passion to deliver a wonderful take on this character, but he’s clearly left floundering for want of direction. Pete Postlethwaite is in a similar situation. He delivers his lines perfectly well as the Father Lawrence, except that we first meet him shirtless, with a giant cross tattooed on his back. This would be strange enough, except that there are two young boys with him.

I’ll repeat that: The first time we meet this priest — who’s a pivotal supporting character and a crucial ally for our young lovers — he’s naked from the waist up and alone with two altar boys. This is just one of many times when someone should have raised a hand and said “Uh, Baz? This might not be such a good idea.”

On a technical level, the movie is horrendous. This is due largely in part to Luhrmann’s proclivity toward excess, which manifests in all the wrong ways. The editing is a joke, the sound design is often cartoonish, and there are frequent uses of close-up and speed-ramping that look godawful. I’m not exaggerating when I say that every single scene has something obviously wrong with it. Even in the final death scene — easily the movie’s strongest — Juliet kills herself without uttering “Oh, happy dagger!”

But let’s get back to the cast. Paul Sorvino makes for a solid Lord Capulet, Harold Perrineau is very entertaining as Mercutio, and Paul Rudd is surprisingly good as Paris. Vondie Curtis-Hall plays the Prince with a suitable amount of fire, though a good portion of the character’s sparse lines were cut. However, I can’t even begin to list the ways that John Leguizamo was wrong for the character of Tybalt, and the less said about Benvolio (Dash Mihok), the better.

Then there’s the Nurse. The most crucial supporting character in the cast, bar none. With Lawrence, she’s the linchpin of the story’s central romance. And in this movie, she sucks. Miriam Margolyes (later known as Professor Sprout in the Harry Potter movies) turns in an absolutely wretched performance, overacting with every syllable spoken. I’ll grant that comedy relief is an important aspect of her character, but Margoyles plays the role with such an unnecessarily thick accent that it’s impossible to take her seriously. Additionally, the choice to use something so incidental as an accent for humor comes off as mean.

But enough of the secondary cast. After all, a few miscast roles would be easy to overlook, if only Juliet was cast with an actress worthy of her Romeo. If only.

Don’t get me wrong, Claire Danes has a lot of great chemistry with DiCaprio… until she opens her mouth. Danes looks the part, but she delivers her lines with roughly 1/100th of the energy necessary. This is the female lead — half the title, for the Bard’s sake — and she’s getting blown off the screen by everything going on around her. Of course, it doesn’t help that everything in this movie is hyperactive and overblown except one half of the movie’s central romance, but that just serves as further proof of Luhrmann’s incompetence, doesn’t it?!

I found Romeo + Juliet to be torture from start to finish. I saw a few signs of potential, but they were all squandered by the piss-poor direction. The attempt at modernization is constantly undercut by a clear lack of appreciation for the text. There were a few nicely creative touches here and there, but the presentation as a whole tried way too hard for its good to be stylish. Finally — and least forgivably, for an adaptation of the most famous love story ever told — though DiCaprio proved a perfectly capable Romeo, he was left with a woefully inadequate Juliet.

Looking to the future, Baz Luhrmann is reuniting with DiCaprio for a film adaptation of “The Great Gatsby.” There’s no denying that DiCaprio’s recent career moves make him superbly suited for the title role, and the rest of the cast is damn fine as well. He’ll be acting opposite Carey Mulligan as Daisy, Tobey Maguire as Nick Carraway, and a fresh up-and-comer named Joel Edgerton playing Tom Buchanan. With a cast this solid, there’s only one question to ask: “Can Luhrmann keep his gaudy and excessive style in check?”

To which I would answer: “He’s shooting the film in 3D.”