"Romeo and Juliet: Sealed With a Kiss"

Ugh.

Honestly, the review should just end there. This movie was so bad, easily the worst we have subjected ourselves to. I made the (retrospectively stupid) decision to watch a "romantic" movie last weekend because it was nearing Valentine's Day. For the record, Zach and I spent our Valentine's eating ridiculously large burritos and watching Adam Green's brilliant "Hatchet 2." To say I made a stupid decision picking this "family friendly" film would be the understatement of a lifetime.

I am a huge Shakespeare fan. I am not one to quote "King John" off the cuff, but I have taken several courses in the Bard, and have seen many, many terrible interpretations. This, my dear readers, topped them all.

First, the story is a very (VERY) loose adaptation of the work. For some reason, Tybalt and Paris have been replaced by the Prince. This boggled me. The Prince is supposed to be the peacekeeper. In this version, he is a lecherous villain who lusts after Juliet. He also looks more like a booger or "The Blob" than a seal.

Oh yeah, all major characters are seals...take a look at the title...see what they did there? The only main character not a seal is Friar Lawrence who is some voodoo spouting squirrel otter. The director also created a Dory/Flounder/Chip (insert any cute Disney comic relief here) character named "Kissy," voiced by his daughter. This character had confused motives and no real reason to exist in this universe.

This movie tried really hard to follow the Disney plot structure, but it failed on all accounts. Also, spoiler, nobody dies. Why would you even attempt a "Romeo and Juliet" adaptation without killing off at least one character as a means to move the plot forward?

This is a really hard review for me to write. I am honestly struggling. I hate that this director thought he could adequately re-imagine the Bard's classic tale. However, the man gave it his all. He single-handedly animated this work. Even though I want to rip it into shreds, as he did with Shakespeare's words, the man worked his ass off. He wanted it to be something great.

It was awful, painful, offensive, and stupid...and I now officially hate the song, "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." But I will be damned if I don't give the guy some credit for sticking to his guns, even on a project so obviously flawed.