TaryBiggBall It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Quiet Muffin This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

zsofikam If I could describe Romeo & Juliet: Sealed With A Kiss in one word, it would be "OK." It's debatable whether OK is a word but that's beside the point. I came into Sealed With A Kiss expecting it to be pretty bad, but was surprised to find that it was better than I thought it would be, not great or even particularly good but not horrible either. Don't come in expecting Romeo And Juliet because this is more a light introduction for the 3-6 crowd. Besides the fact that all the characters are seals (aside from Friar Lawrence, who is an otter for some unexplained reason), there's a somewhat happier ending and some characters are either combined or eliminated entirely. Paris and the Prince are combined into the seal prince and Tybalt and the Nurse are nowhere to be found. Anyway, not as bad I as was expecting but still something of a mixed bag. One the one hand; the animation is quite nice (especially considering it was done by only one person), there were some good character designs, most of the characters were likable enough, and the Kissy Fish was cute, although I wasn't a fan of the voice. As for the bad points; while most of the character designs were good but the Prince looked oddly phallic and while I like the Kissy Fish's design, her voice I found irritating. I also wasn't too keen on the songs and honestly thought that this could have just as easily been without them. Also, I would have Tybalt and the Nurse to be at least mentioned, but at least it's not missing nearly as many characters as The Black Cauldron. Overall, I thought it was just OK; not all that good but not as bad as either people say or I was expecting it to be.

Eric Stevenson Given that we have had three awful animated Titanic movies, it only fits that sooner or later we'd have a bad movie based on Shakespeare. The thing is, the animation isn't really terrible and neither is the movie. It's still really bad, though. This movie reenacts "Romeo And Juliet" only with cartoon seals for really no reason at all. As you might have guessed, there's a bunch of dumb kid's songs in it. Of course they wouldn't actually die at the end, it's a kid's movie! If "The Lion King" could be "Hamlet" with cartoon animals, this could have been good too.The worst thing is probably how annoying the characters are. Even the extras are obnoxious in this particularly with how they won't shut up about how Romeo and Juliet can't get together. There's also this super annoying little fish that fights a shark by getting other fish to slap it or something stupid like that. I guess Romeo and Juliet aren't that annoying, but everyone else is. There's this elephant seal that supposed to have bad breath, but he looks more like he's farting out his mouth. The pacing is terrible and don't expect any faithful scenes from the play. *1/2

TheLittleSongbird I love Shakespeare, and was intrigued at how "Romeo and Juliet:Sealed with a Kiss" would turn out. I did hear from people it was a disgrace to Shakespeare, but I have been known to disagree with critics and the IMDb ratings, so I gave this a chance. It wasn't absolutely repulsive, but it didn't quite click with me. The best asset of the film is the animation. The backgrounds are fluid and colourful and the characters with the exception of the Prince were well drawn. Considering the animation was done by one man, Phil Nibbelink, it was quite impressive visually. The story pretty much follows the storyline of the play, except it is about seals, plus some (I think) pointless scenes with Friar Lawrence and a shark, and the voice acting was on the whole decent. However, there are a lot of things wrong with it. I personally didn't care for the music. I love good music in animated films, but here I found the songs forgettable and bland, and the incidental music felt misplaced. I will say I liked one or two of the characters, Romeo and Juliet are appealing enough and the Kissing Fish is really cute. However, Friar Lawrence is not the wise caring character I associate him with, and I do not know why the Nurse was omitted when she provides the most effective source of parental love in the play. In my opinion, I didn't like the character of the Prince at all, I didn't like how he was drawn and his voice was too monotonic for my liking. Worst of all was the script, constant misuse of the Shakespeare language and Mercutio's jokes went well overboard, and especially in his death scene they weren't even funny. Overall, this movie was okay but I don't recommend it. 4/10 Bethany Cox

edboles Sealed With a Kiss is a traditional fully-animated film, with seals doing Shakespeare. I admit that like many others, I wasn't totally sold on the concept, but then when you get down to it The Lion King was basically Hamlet with lions, and few seemed to have a problem with that. Turned out to be quite a fun little movie. While the dialogue is modern, the film has a few of the characters quoting famous Shakespearian lines, but in a way that shouldn't alienate children. It's more of a comedic thing. The story gets going straight away, with rivalry between the 2 groups of seals. This is part about racism, but for the most part, an old-fashioned feud. I was worried going in that the romance would be forced and sappy. Well maybe it is a little sappy, but it's sweet, and sincerely handled. As in the play, it's love at first sight. Two of the songs near the start were, I thought rather weak, but they at least progressed the story. As the film gets going, there are fewer songs.Unlike the play, the film is light in tone and has many comedic elements. There are a few laugh-out-loud moments but some of Mercutio's puns are groan inducing(even the characters in the film seem to think so). As you would expect, liberties are taken (most notably the ending), and it isn't weighed down like some adaptations. To be honest, I fully expected it to be Romeo & Juliet in name only, and sure enough a great many story elements have no relation whatsoever to what Shakespeare wrote, but I was surprised that the core of what is here is more or less true to what I remember of the original.I was particularly interested to see how the animation turned out, as it has emerged that this film is that rarest of things: a one man animated film. Phil Nibbelink wrote, directed and animated every frame of the film over the course of 5 years. Despite this, it is remarkably well animated. Well drawn fluid cartoony animation. It's not quite of the level of a top notch Disney animated film, but it comes very close, indeed far closer than I would have ever dreamed possible for a one-man effort. A few shortcuts are taken, but there are a surprising number of scenes animated on ones (which takes twice as many drawings as is usually necessary). This means the animation can be that extra bit more fluid. Some shortcuts can be seen in some of the background characters and effects animation, but this is generally where it matters least. The important stuff, the character animation, is top notch, what you would expect from a strong Disney animator (which is what Nibbelink spent a decade working as). The backgrounds are soft-focus simple and uncluttered to frame the character animation. In a few cases these are perhaps a little rushed, but all in all, they set the atmosphere and do the job.Even with the lighter tone, it still manages strong dramatic moments. Despite the villain of the piece being a doofus played mostly for laughs, he nevertheless adds menace to the proceedings. There's nothing here that should bother small children, and they should have no trouble following the storyline. While the film aims at a young audience that may not yet be ready for this kind of romance, there should be enough action and comedy to keep them entertained.