'Juliet & Romeo' review: Listless, unfocused Shakespeare update

Quick: How many degrees of separation between William Shakespeare and the rock band KISS?

The answer is just two, if you count Neil Bogart, who signed KISS to his famed Casablanca record label, and his sons, who produced "Juliet & Romeo," a new pop musical based on one of the Bard’s most beloved plays.

Written and directed by Timothy Scott Bogart, with original songs by Evan Kidd Bogart (a Grammy-winner for Beyoncé's "Halo") and Justin Gray, "Juliet & Romeo" could have used the late Bogart’s eye for show-biz spectacle. The other ‘70s-era acts on his label were diverse but uniformly bold, from camp icons The Village People to funk freakazoids Parliament. "Juliet & Romeo," by contrast, is as tame and generic as musicals come, anchored by two cookie-cutter leads and songs that simply mimic anything popular. All that, plus the film’s glaring similarities to the current Broadway hit “& Juliet," turns what should have been a hormone-fueled romance into a bland piece of Hollywood "packaging.

An astoundingly detailed preamble sets our story in 1301 Verona, Italy, against a backdrop of papal intrigue, royalist sentiment and concerns about the fate of Rome. A simple setup like the Sharks and Jets would have sufficed, thanks, especially in a movie where Mercutio (Nicholas Podany) bellows colloquially, "Where the hell art thou, Romeo?" When we first meet that moony Montague (Jamie Ward), he sings the ballad "Stranger," then bumps into the winsome Juliet Capulet (Clara Rugaard). There isn’t much danger, frisson or chemistry in their collision: They just chat, part ways, and return to their homes to keep singing.

That sets the tone for this listless, unfocused movie. The conspicuously contemporary songs (think Swift, Rodrigo and Roan) sit oddly with the medieval costumes, while the choreography (by Broadway veterans Jeff and Rick Kuperman, of "The Outsiders") is mostly limited to somersaults. Sprinkled among the cast are several greats, including Derek Jacobi as Friar Lawrence, while a newly slim Rebel Wilson abandons her comedic talents to recite a few functional lines as Lady Capulet. (The pop singer Ledisi also has a small role.) Most maddening is how the filmmakers keep futzing around with the story — the Apothecary, played by Dan Fogler, is now a Jew who smuggles refugees out of the city — while forgetting to hit some crucial beats. Really, no balcony scene? In a musical?

If "Juliet & Romeo" had ignored convention and gone for broke, like Baz Lurhmann’s over-the-top version from 1996 or even Franco Zeffirelli’s achingly sincere take from 1968, the movie might have worked. Its fatal flaw is that it does what it thinks it’s supposed to do, instead of following its own heart — the very opposite of what the whole story is about.

By Rafer Guzmán

rafer.guzman@newsday.com