Love's Labour Lost

First of all, let me say that I think Kenneth Branagh is brilliant. He is a great actor, and as a director/actor, his movies like Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing, and Hamlet have made Shakespeare accessible to an entirely new generation of viewers.

That being said, Love's Labour's Lost is a lousy movie. First of all it's a musical, which surprised me. Now Love's Labour's Lost, because of its lightness, is probably the best candidate for turning into a musical. I mean, can you imagine a musical adaptation of Hamlet? (Although who can forget the priceless Gilligan's Island musical version of that play!) The movie is similar to Moulin Rouge in integrating popular music into the plot, though while Moulin Rouge used contemporary music, Love's Labour's Lost uses songs from old American musicals, songs such as "Cheek to Cheek" and "The Way You Look Tonight".

For some reason it falls flat. While I enjoy seeing old-time stars like Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, and Ginger Rogers, for some reason it is much less appealing watching Kenneth Branagh and Alicia Silverstone dancing and singing. There must be some change in expectations of our current generation of film stars. Also the singing is obviously dubbed, and for some reason the songs are cut extremely short (which actually is a benefit in hindsight!). And the lighting of the movie feels very plastic. Perhaps they were trying to resemble the high-key lighting of musicals like Singin' in the Rain, but could not reproduce that Technicolor look. There is also the tendency for these stage adaptations to be shot too closely, and this film suffers from that, whereas Much Ado About Nothing, and Hamlet did not.

So I got very frustrated with this movie, and turned it off in the middle, which I rarely do. Still, no one can deny the creativity and daring of Kenneth Branagh as a filmmaker, and I always say that innovative films are always worth making, even if they don't always work out.