Romeo and Juliet compared to Romeo + Juliet

       In my agenda book, there's a quote "Don't judge a book by it's movie." Comparing Romeo and Juliet to the 1996 film version, I guess I can agree with that. I didn't think reading Romeo and Juliet was going to be good nor did I think it was going to be bad and that's what expresses my feelings on the book after reading it. However, I do feel like the film version doesn't do the book enough credit for the story it's suppose to be played out as.
                           Romeo and Juliet tells the story of a tragic story between a young boy and girl who believe that they love each other so much that life without the other would be the equivalent to hell; Although it's a love story, the book is fairly dark and touching a lot of philosophical topics such as fate, the aftermath of death, a lot religous references etc. It focuses on Romeo and Juliet but what it really seems to  transition to is the bad blood between the two rival families which I find more interesting then Romeo or Juliet threatning to commit suicide when they're apart for an hour or so. But back to the theme of the book, this was written a few centuries ago but now, I would think that Shakespeare wanted a person to be able to understand that this book wasn't just about love it was about things much more. It seems to almost challenge the force of nature, and sometimes characters speak as if they were trying to defy this way of life such as in Romeo several times cursing fate as if it was a figure of power, and Mercutio moments before death almost joking about his fatal wound even saying things like "it is but a scratch" (reminded me of Monty Python and the Holy Grail). Shakespeare is trying to challenge the worlds natural phenomenon.
                                               With a strong message from a book like that you'd expect a strong way of adaptation such as film would have no problem transitioning that to a big screen but sadly we're all wrong. In Romeo + Juliet, it seems just to focus mainly on Romeo and Juliet and either cut out scenes or didn't elaborate much on moments that truly were talking about philosophy. In my other "review" esq post on Romeo + Juliet I said that it felt more like a teen dream movie and that was before I read the book. After reading it, of course my opinions on the film are lowered. Maybe it's just Leonardo Dicaprio's girlish face, Claire Danes poor delivery of Juliet's lines, or just the fact how random Paul Rudd appears in the movie as Paris, but the fact is the movie is just silly when you think of the serious dramatic tone the book has. The film doesn't do the movie justice but it's not the only one and probably not the last one. Even though I have my criticisms, this book is really hard to develop into a good film just because you still have to get past the fact that two kids who have known each other less than a week had killed themselves over each other and the guy was in "love" like a day before he even met her. I don't think the version we watched does the book justice but it still is an interesting way to do it.