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Any critique of this play should be rendered with the awareness of what it was intended to do. True interpretation has given way to a stylized artist's rendition that is highly effective in its deliberate purpose of widening Shakespeare’s audience to include young people. As Pete Travers writes for Rolling Stone Magazine, it is “meant to make Romeo and Juliet accessible to the elusive Gen X audience”. To do this Baz Luhrmann paints a picture of artistically stylized urban sprawl. He creates characters more suited to today’s society than in Shakespeare’s time; a police chief named “Prince” who calls his orders to desist from a hovering helicopter, teenage villains and heroes with guns “named” sword, and Capulet and Montague parents who run high profile Corporations. Underscore that picture with a soundtrack pulsing with music popular with today’s youth. A thoroughly dramatic set of images that persist throughout the film. The fictional city of “Verona Beach” is highly stylized w