Love's Labours Lost [VHS] | ![Love's Labours Lost [VHS]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51NV39PPP9L._SL500_.jpg)
| Actors: Alfred Bell, Richard Briers, Richard Clifford, Carmen Ejogo, Daisy Gough
Studio: Walt Disney Video
Category: Video
Buy New: $106.99
New (2) Used (8) from $0.99
Rating:  77 reviews
Sales Rank: 37204
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Original Recording Reissued, Ntsc
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: VHS Tape
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 94 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.3 x 4.2 x 1.1
UPC: 786936146844
EAN: 0786936146844
ASIN: B00005BCP9
Theatrical Release Date: 2000
Release Date: June 5, 2001
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
Description
With Kenneth Branagh (WILD WILD WEST, CELEBRITY), Alicia Silverstone (BLAST FROM THE PAST), and Nathan Lane (AT FIRST SIGHT, MOUSE HUNT) leading a stellar ensemble cast, Stanley Donen and Martin Scorsese present a sexy, glamorous, and fun 1930's-style musical that's earned terrific critical acclaim! The King of Navare (Alessandro Nivola -- MANSFIELD PARK, FACE/OFF) and his three best friends think that they've sworn off love in the pursuit of intellectual enlightenment. But when the Princess of France (Silverstone) and her beautiful attendants arrive for a diplomatic visit, their high-minded plans are turned completely upside down! Then, as war rages and secret passions burn, loyalty and devotion are tested like never before! Also featuring hilarious Matthew Lillard (SHE'S ALL THAT, SCREAM) and the classic songs of Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, and more -- go back in time and allow yourself to be swept away by this wonderfully entertaining motion picture treat!
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| Customer Reviews: Read 72 more reviews...
 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.
 Love, Labored and Lost July 8, 2008
Amaranth (Northern California)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
"Love's Labor's Lost" is one of the Bard's more bittersweet comedies. There's the joy of romantic love tempered with the bitter reality of war, and the original ending is open to question. As Berowne says, "This isn't a normal play. Jack does not get his Jill."
Kenneth Branagh decided to turn the Bard's bittersweet tale into a fluffy '30s musical, complete with fake newsreel footage. The Prince of Navarre (Alessandro Nivola) leads his friends to forswear women for study. However,when the Princess of France (Alicia Silverstone) stops by with her handmaidens, love and music is in the air. There are numerous campy musical sequences-- such as "Cheek to cheek" number where the young men are soaring overhead like puppets against a sky backdrop, and "Let's face the music and dance",a "sexy" number where the couples wear masks--that seems more of a tribute to Wild Orchid than William Shakespeare.
Kenneth Branagh,as Berowne,poetically speaks Shakespeare's poetry. One can say the script is strong despite the actors. Alicia Silverstone, Matthew Lillard and Nathan Lane give vapid readings. Poor Lane looks out of place as the comical Costard. It's nice to see interracial romance treated in an ordinary, everyday way--- but the cast is weak.
"Love's Labor's Lost" ends up labored and lost. With stilted choreography and a pretentious use of the Great American Songbook, it ends up a campy-- and fascinating-- failure,but not in the entertaining "Xanadu" sense. To paraphrase Shakespeare,it's all sound and funny, signifying nothing.
 Shakespeare ReVamped January 28, 2008
Christen (Maryland, USA)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
The film wasn't quite what I expected when I purchased it, but now that I've seen it, I'm glad it wasn't. They use famous songs to make an old classic modern and innovative. Nathan Lane is hilarious as well as Timothy Spall. Once again, Kenneth Branagh works wonders as a director AND actor. It's a good date movie for drama geeks (like me). :)
Unusual, but that's why I like it November 27, 2007
H. Cornett (Ridgecrest, CA United States)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is definitely not for Shakespeare purists, but if you don't take the Bard too seriously, it's cute and fun. The blending of classic Shakespeare with Broadway song and dance routines makes for an unusual experience, which certainly isn't everyone's cup of tea. I think I'm the only person in my household who likes this movie, but that doesn't put a damper on how much I enjoy it.
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