Shakespeare must be spinning in his tomb fast enough to power Vatican City as Juliet & Romeo bumbles into theaters this weekend. This latest reimagining of literature’s most famous love story trades iambic pentameter for poorly autotuned pop ballads with disastrous results. Director Timothy Scott Bogart attempts to breathe fresh life into the centuries-old tale by reversing the titular characters’ names (brilliant)  and infusing modern music into medieval Verona, but what emerges is a high-concept gaudy mess, a tuneless travesty that dishonors both the source material and the musical genre it desperately wants to elevate.

Set in 1301—though the backdrop looks more like a reality dating show filmed at a Tuscan Airbnb—Juliet & Romeo claims to uncover the “true story” behind the original doomed lovers. This version imagines historical consequences, shifting empires, and vague political stakes that never materialize. The script jettisons the play’s emotional weight for dreary drama and thin girl-power slogans. In place of Shakespeare’s elegant structure and emotional heft, we get bubble-wrapped ballads and inane dialogue that sounds like rejected drafts from the CW Network.

Musically, Juliet & Romeo is a monotonous wall of sound. The songs, credited to Evan Bogart and Justin Gray, come in two flavors: sad mush and faux-inspirational mush. Most blur together into a saccharine stream of anemic hogwash. Lyrical gems like “I may be falling tonight, but I’m not falling in love” rub shoulders with “Why do they always call it falling in love?”—proof someone fed breakup quotes into a rhyming app and called it a day. A particularly cursed number by Dan Fogler’s (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them) apothecary character plays like a Disney villain track left in the microwave too long, with vocal processing so aggressively hollow and digitally mangled it sounds like the mic shorted out mid-note.

Director Bogart stitches together a series of overproduced scenes where each character seems to exist in their own melodramatic vacuum. Clara Rugaard, as Juliet, manages to sneak in a few moments of grace. She’s the only cast member who emerges with her dignity intact, though her singing voice might be the most profusely autotuned. Still, her bright-eyed performance suggests a much better film lurking under all the noise. Jamie Ward, as Romeo, however, confuses brooding for charisma. Smoldering through every scene like he’s auditioning for a perfume commercial, he fails to spark even a flicker of chemistry with his co-star. Despite their physical closeness, the leads might as well be on opposite continents.

The supporting cast reads like a who’s-who of wasted talent wondering how they got here. Jason Isaacs (Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris) and Derek Jacobi (Gladiator II) are visibly cringing through their lines and, I’m not sure, might be doing community service for some crime. As Lady Capulet, Rebel Wilson (Pitch Perfect) barely gets to sing a note and is on screen for all of five minutes, trying on pure drama (and what looks like a redressed pope’s hat) for size. Rupert Graves (Daliland) and Rupert Everett (Napoleon) wear expressions that say, “Where’s my check?” while the obnoxious Fogler’s useless turn as the apothecary includes a manic musical number that has him pushing and pulling poor Jacobi around like he was a ragdoll.

What drove me crazy was the film’s confusion about what it wanted to be. Ditching Shakespeare’s poetry, it insists on keeping random lines (take a drink every time someone says/sings “What’s in a name?”), creating bizarre friction between wannabe-modern flair and awkward traditional callbacks. This is the type of movie that introduces non-characters like Rosaline (Tayla Parx) and Veronica (Martina Ortiz Luis), then builds entire songs around their emotional arcs despite them barely registering as people. There’s a whole scene of women (most of whom we’ve never met) singing about emotional masks and metaphorical crosses they bear, but the film hasn’t given them any inner lives to make those lyrics land.

Visually, the film is giving costume party with an identity crisis. Presumably to lend some authenticity, cinematographer Byron Werner leans heavily on natural lighting, but it often comes off like an extended commercial for cheap Prosecco . Digital backdrops clash with ornate sets, and castle shoots are clearly rushed night sessions (you can literally see the actors’ breath in most scenes).

The costume design by Luciano Capozzi and Emily Jerman looks like it came from a costly middle school production: unbuttoned peasant shirts for the hairless guys wearing heavy eyeliner, cleavage-forward gowns, and caked-on makeup for the girls. (Though I did appreciate Grammy-winning singer Ledisi, who clearly took charge of her own costume when she found out she didn’t get any solo singing, dressing as a pepper grinder for the masked ball.) Even the legendary Oscar-winning production designer Dante Ferretti (who must live nearby and have been tricked into participating) can’t salvage the visual incoherence.

What’s most baffling is how Juliet & Romeo fundamentally misread the source material because, emotionally, it’s a black hole. Shakespeare’s story is about first-love passion, teenage impulsivity, and generational trauma. Here, it’s just set dressing for a line of overwrought, banal musical numbers. At an excruciating 121 minutes, it begins to feel interminable, with each autotuned ballad only extending the agony.

And just when you think the cringe has peaked, the final scene hints at a sequel. Yes—someone wants to franchise Romeo and Juliet. It lands not as a cliffhanger but as a cinematic threat. If you’ve ever wondered what The Greatest Showman would look like if it lost its talent, tone, and purpose, this is your answer. If there’s a tragedy in this tale, it’s that so many talented people came together to make something so thoroughly misguided. This isn’t a reinterpretation; it’s a disservice. Avoid it like you would a poisoned chalice.