H&M Romeo & Juliet advert - Munich

Commercials before movies are evil enough. See an earlier rant by Profundo. But in the last week or two a new horror has come to our screens.

The H&M fashion chain are running a 10 minute advert - yes, a whole 10 minutes!!! - which is based on the story Romeo and Juliet. Has anyone else had the misfortune to be assaulted by this yet? Did you also hate it as passionately as I did?



Not only does it make you cringe from start to finish - the story is also just plain wrong. Romeo committed suicide in the original play by Willy Shakes. In this interpretation he is killed. There have also been complaints that it glamorises gun culture.

Having to endure 25 minutes of pre-movie diversions, always ending with Shaggy singing "Like ice in the sunshine", is bad enough. But this really takes the biscuit. I did wonder whether H&M deliberately made this so painful for the precise reason of getting people to talk about it - just like I'm doing now. But Iceberg Slim assures me that advertisers don't work like this.

Anyway, if you really must see what I'm talking about, the movie short is available online: (turn on your sound)

• Streamed Quicktime version
  
• Streamed RealPlayer version
  

You can also view movie extras and background info by going to www.hm.com and navigating to "Inspiration / H&M Denim".

This is the vilest piece of garbage I have had the misfortune to have to sit through TWICE! I'm considering boycotting the Cinema altogether.

Can you please settle an argument between my friend and I. Does she actually get shot because she pulls out her cell phone or is that just a random flash of light?

It was truly horrible! I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, it was so bad.

This has been running quite a while, I saw this at Matheser about 6 weeks ago. Very strange !

Also recently saw this on German TV.

One more reason that u can go half an hour late to the movies here in München (specially to the Museum Lichtspeile)...They should have versions of shows with and without this crap..the one with it should cost way less for pain of enduring it

I saw this the other night. HORRIBLE. A complete embarrassment to anyone who's set foot in an H&M store. The most horrid thing ever committed to celluloid. The writers, actors, director, cameramen, editors, etc. should pray forgiveness for the eternal shame they have bestowed upon their ancestors.

Seppuku is their only means of atonement.

Yep, saw it the other week when I was drunk. I wondered what the hell was going on and when the H&M logo popped up at the the few people in the theatre including myself voiced their unsatisfaction of being forced to watch it.

could you guys be a little bit more direct maybe.

are you saying it isn't very good

I find it hard to believe that advertisers could put something this atrocious together simply to get people to talk about it. Adverts are very rarely subtle and this one just takes itself too seriously for it to be anything but a bad idea poorly executed.

I also don't credit a H&M with much creativity. They rip off other designers to produce cheap fashions and now they've ripped of Baz Luhrman's Romeo & Juliet for bad advertising.

On the other hand, I am now thinking about a visit to H&M tomorrow...

What bothers me most is that cinemas have continued to up ticket prices despite their exploitation of a new revenue stream (their captive audiences as targets for advertising).

I saw this on Monday too. I'm familar with the short TV version which was shown after the loooong version. It was just painful to watch it. People were groaning and clapping when it was over in Cinema.

Yeah, I wanted to puke myself.

And yes, she points the gun so they will shoot her dead!

I coulda sworn it was her cell phone that she pointed

I thought it was a cell phone (hard to tell with my hands over my face though).

well not a bad strategy though!!

Bore the viewers soo much / make them feel so disgusted / make people talk about it in Toytown soo much to actually start a thread, that

ONE would never forget H & M!... the brand (well, one would probably never buy any H & M goods either!)

Yes, you are right, it was a cell phone, but she pretended it was a gun <natch>.