Love's Labour's Lost |  | Actors: Alfred Bell, Richard Briers, Richard Clifford, Carmen Ejogo, Daisy Gough
Studio: Miramax
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.99
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Seller: inetvideo
Rating:  80 reviews
Sales Rank: 6162
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 93 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.1 x 0.6
MPN: DISD18317D
UPC: 717951005021
EAN: 0717951005021
ASIN: B00004Z4WW
Theatrical Release Date: 2000
Release Date: December 19, 2000
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com
Having taken Shakespeare at his word on Hamlet (i.e., not cutting a single syllable out of a very long play), Kenneth Branagh selects a more radical approach with Love's Labour's Lost. Here the prolific director-star weeds out much of the play's dialogue and adds songs and dances of a decidedly modern bent. The King of Navarre (Alessandro Nivola, Nicolas Cage's wacko brother in Face/Off) and his three comrades (Branagh, Matthew Lillard, Adrian Lester) take a vow: no womanly distractions while they pursue their studies. Ah, but at that very moment, floating down a magical studio-built river, is the queen of France (Alicia Silverstone), accompanied by three ladies-in-waiting. You do the math. Branagh has set the tale on the eve of the Second World War, which allows for the inclusion of vintage pop songs, including "Cheek to Cheek," "The Way You Look Tonight," and a rousing chorus of "There's No Business Like Show Business," led by--who else?--Nathan Lane. The fact that most of the cast members are not accomplished song-and-dance folk is clearly meant to charm, but the results are spotty at best. Perhaps the most dynamic performer is Natascha McElhone (memorable from Ronin), whose aristocratic bearing and bottomless eyes lend a gravity to the material that is otherwise absent from Branagh's twinkly staging. The play contains some of Shakespeare's loveliest paeans to the language of love, yet Branagh seems to be in a hurry to juice everything up lest the audience lose interest. The labor shows. --Robert Horton
Product Description
The king of navarre & his 3 companions swear a very public oath to renounce women for 3 years. They are immediately put to the test by the arrival of the princess of france & her 3 lovely companions. Its love at 1st sight for all concerned followed by the mens highly entertaining attempts to disguise their feeling Studio: Buena Vista Home Video Release Date: 05/04/2004 Starring: Kenneth Branagh Alessandro Nivola Run time: 94 minutes Rating: Pg Director: Kenneh Branagh
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 80
 loves labour lost December 30, 2009
geneveive (bowen australia)
brilliant innovative production incorporating Shakespeare set in pre ww2 with music from 20th century composers such as Gershwyn and cole porter. Kenneth Branah shows his brilliance as an actor/director as well as a song and dance man. Video is sexy and fun
 Is this a joke? September 23, 2009
M. Miller (MD, United States)
I was excited to see this movie because I love Kenneth Branagh's Shakespeare movies. Unlike his others, though, I haven't read this Shakespeare play. So maybe I should have done that before I watched the movie. Oh, well, too late. The movie started out ok; a ton of dialogue about the vow the four men have taken and how serious it is. But then all of a sudden, they broke into SONG! When I realized that he turned it into a musical, I couldn't decide how I felt about it. I think it might work if the idea was really SOLD - in other words, the actors could sing and dance really well, instead of just ok singing and dances that were obviously choreographed for people who aren't dancers. This was not convincing. I still can't figure out whether Branagh was trying to pay homage to a great film genre (1930s/40s movie musical) or poking gentle fun at it. The dancing is weak, with the exception of Adrian Lester, who both sings and dances well in this film - unfortunately that just seems to emphasize how mediocre the singing and dancing of the others is. And I have no idea why a scene from "Chicago" took over the movie when the song "Let's Face the Music and Dance" came on. It really made no sense; the rest of the film wasn't that sensual at all, and there certainly wouldn't have been dancing like that in the 1940s musicals. To be frank, the musical numbers and dances just didn't flow naturally in each scene - they were awkward and not enjoyable enough to be excused for that awkwardness. Perhaps it is because generally the 1930s/40s musicals paired cheesy songs with cheesy lovey-dovey dialogue, so it flowed. Or, failing that, they used a show-within-a-show vehicle to feature the songs (think White Christmas). Maybe this could have been successful if Boublil & Schonberg (Les Miserables) had composed more serious music for it, rather than Branagh choosing to use old standards.
I watched the film to the end, because I didn't know what actually happened in the play and wanted to know. I'm still not sure I do know. We got a bunch of fake news reels throughout the movie and a whole bunch at the end, which somehow were supposed to help, I am sure, but I think they fell flat and the ending was way too rushed and abrupt. The ladies say, "oh, we have to go so the princess can be queen now that her's father's dead - wait a year for us," then there's a war, the men all fight/ladies help with the war's cause; then it's over and they are together, yippee! I don't feel like we had enough time to see the characters fall in love for real, so I didn't really care whether they got together in the end or not. And I'm sorry, but Alicia just didn't work in that princess role. She was the Keanu Reeves of the production (although not as bad as he was in Much Ado - shudder). It was very hard to get over her pronunciation and "acting". I also couldn't figure out what the point was of the following characters: the Spaniard, the country lass, Nathan Lane's character, the constable, the professor, and the reverend. I know they are in the play; but they didn't seem to have a connection to the other characters here, and I certainly couldn't understand what was going on between them. The funniest scene (at least I hope it was supposed to be funny) was when the country lass, the prof., the reverend, the constable, etc. were "dancing" - I put it in quotes because I'm not sure I'd call it that. What I did like: the costumes, the scenery. A little bit of the acting, maybe some of Branagh's lines. But even Branagh has a speech in the library which seems acted/spoken in an identical way to his soliloquy in Much Ado where he's describing the kind of woman he wants, which I found disappointing and it made me think less of him as an actor.
Watch this movie if you want to see how strange it is. I gave it three stars because it's not as though the source material is bad, and I won't throw up if I have to watch it again. It's worth a once-through if you like Shakespeare and musicals. It probably could have been so much better, though.
 Delightfully silly July 8, 2009
Dennis Dorwick (Australia)
Although this production leaves the ground (literally in one scene) of the text it is a beautiful and delighfully silly film. Love's Labour Lost is a play of wit which delighted Elizabeth's court but demands much of a modern reader/playgoer... but rewards are there for the persistant. Branagh offers a sweetener if you haven't read it.
I Get a Kick out of You March 2, 2009
John Murphy
"Love's Labour's Lost" is an entertaining mash-up of a 1930's era musical with one of Shakespeare's slighter comedies. The combination is less seamless than one might have wished, but Kenneth Branagh and his photogenic cast coast on creamy charm. This flighty flick has all the nutritional value of a flute of champagne, but who says Shakespeare has to be good for you? After Branagh's epic, unabridged "Hamlet"--a four course meal if ever there was one--no one can blame him for whipping up this frothy dessert.
The fact that "LLL" is relatively unknown Shakespeare gives Branagh license to play fast and loose with his source material. This adaptation doesn't labor under the false pretense that it is anything more than it is - an old fashioned paean to old-fashioned movie musicals. Branagh sets the film in a Technicolor dreamscape that deliberately echoes the great musicals of yesteryear. The soundtrack features hummable hits by the likes of Irving Berlin, Gershwin, and Cole Porter, and the movie itself is a wholehearted embrace of old-school glamour: dapper tuxedoes, filtered cigarettes, chic hairdos, Busby-Berkeley water theatrics, and some burlesque-inspired broad comedy are all welcome throwbacks to a more stylish era.
A movie this bubbly and good-natured would be tough for even the most hardened cynic to resist. So call me a cynic, but for all its breezy charm "LLL" never quite hits the high notes of Branagh's first cinematic foray into Shakespeare comedy, "Much Ado About Nothing" (1993). Gussying up one of the Bard's less-produced plays as a retro musical was a nifty idea, but the movie never quite lives up to the promise of its cutesy conceit.
Part of the problem is that the cast's singing and dancing skills are not exactly up to snuff. The shaggy-dog amateurishness of the dance numbers adds to the movie's "let's put on a show!" charm, but any comparisons to Ginger Rogers or Fred Astaire would be downright insulting. (Adrian Lester excepted -- this incredible talent sings, dances, and performs "Hamlet" like he was born for the part. What can't he do?) The choreography is modest enough to not embarrass the untrained actors' equally modest abilities, and the occasionally off-key renderings of Broadway standards also have an oddly appealing quality. Nonetheless, this is a musical, after all, and the slipshod singing and dancing give the impression that Branagh slapped the production together in a manic fit of inspiration and didn't have the time or the resources to smooth out the rough patches.
Branagh enthusiasts (and I count myself among them) will get a kick out of the singing, dancing, and Bard-penned bantering. "LLL" is so light, it practically vanishes. Yet even if you can't remember exactly what transpired as the credits roll, you'll probably have a couple of catchy showtunes swimming in your head and a warm sense of soft-focus nostalgia for bygone days. There are worse ways to spend an evening.
Let's Face the Music November 27, 2008
Kevin Killian (San Francisco, CA United States)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Wild horses couldn't get most of us to watch a full-length Shakespeare play starring Alicia Silverstone, but give the girl credit for really trying! (I do like the review below in which the reviewer criticizes Silverstone for speaking her dialogue with emphasis on every single word, it's true.) So even while I take off two stars for the terrible performance she gives, I add two stars because I think she's so great. What! A paradox worthy of the great Matthew Lillard. In any case she looks enchanting and her expressions in the cafe scenes with her girlfriends, as she glances from face to face, often seeming to anticipate who will be speaking next, give the viewer the feeling of being a pinball in a mighty pinball machine of the late 16th century. She must have been studying, or Branagh must have been feeding her, videotapes of old Cybill Shepherd movies like DAISY MILLER and AT LONG LAST LOVE to get everything that disastrously wrong on a syllable level... and yet the movie would be pretty dull without her.
Kenneth Branagh, why so many long, long long shots of the musical numbers like the one in "I've Got a Crush on You?" Is it to reassure us that the actors you picked are actually doing the dancing? Maybe so, for in the one number (the sexy "Let's Face the Music and Dance," in which all the stars wear elaborate masks) that uses extremely swift cuts and closeups of miscellaneous body parts a la FLASHDANCE, I was soon convinced that the real actors were participating only occasionally, and that you had hired Ann Reinking or whoever to play their body doubles for the Fosse-like choreography. I see that you persuaded Stanley Donen (and Martin Scorcese) to sign on as "presenters," whatever that means, but in those long static shots of Geraldine McEwan cavorting for ten minutes at a stretch along a green sward, you are displaying the Donen touch for sure.
Were you too old to play a youth in Love's Labours Lost? Maybe so, but I watched the whole picture just thinking you were the uncle to the other boys. Only after I went back and read the play did I see that Berowne is supposed to be no older, just a little wiser, than his three friends. Still you're great and I'm just sorry that the failure of this movie was such a setback for your career. But you wound up luckier than your leading lady whose career this bomb pretty much decimated. She was for five minutes the greatest star in the world, then you came along with this, and the Batman and Robin movie came along making her look chunky and dumb, and then it was curtains for a unique talent in the cinema.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 80
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