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81
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81
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Water Horse: Legend of the Deep, The
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Charlie Wilson's War
68
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68
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Great Debaters, The
64
Cloverfield
63
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
63
11th Hour, The
63
Hannah Takes the Stairs
60
I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With
57
Romulus, My Father
57
Teeth
55
Resurrecting the Champ
53
Music Within
52
Hollywood Dreams
51
Golden Compass, The
49
Good Night, The
47
Bella
47
Lions for Lambs
47
27 Dresses
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Reservation Road
44
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43
Youth Without Youth
43
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41
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41
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39
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39
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38
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37
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30
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30
Cover
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Moondance Alexander
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Love's Labour's Lost
Miramax Films
FILM:
MPAA RATING: PG for sensuality and a brief drug reference
Starring
Alessandro Nivola,
Alicia Silverstone,
Natascha McElhone,
and
Kenneth Branagh
Branagh turned Shakespeare's "Love's Labour's Lost" into a 1930s-style romantic musical comedy, topped with retro dance numbers and classic songs.
| GENRE(S): |
Romance
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Kenneth Branagh
William Shakespeare (play)
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Kenneth Branagh
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: December 19, 2000
Video: December 19, 2000
Theatrical: June 9, 2000
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
93 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
France / UK / USA |

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
75
Boston Globe
Jay Carr
Branagh and Love's Labour's Lost all but will themselves into liftoff. They achieve it, and in doing so, they somehow make it right to our pleasure centers with their generous embrace of stardust and pizazz.

68
Mr. Showbiz
Kevin Maynard
A trifle of a farce fashioned into a '30s musical that gaily trips as much as it lightly skips, but nonetheless marks a welcome return to form.

67
Austin Chronicle
Marjorie Baumgarten
The effect is weird but it, actually, kind of works, illuminating both Shakespeare and the artifice of musicals.

63
New York Daily News
Elizabeth Weitzman
The leaden bits do bring the proceedings to a screeching halt too many times, but the costumes are breathtaking, and the details (like color-coordinated martinis) are dazzling.

63
San Francisco Examiner
G. Allen Johnson
The writer-director has come up with a sumptuous, happy piece of fluff.

63
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
There's not a song I wouldn't hear again with pleasure, or a clip that might not make me smile, but as a whole, it's not much. Like cotton candy, it's better as a concept than as an experience.

63
New York Post
Jonathan Foreman
Branagh's attempt to meld Shakespeare's densely verbal early comedy with Broadway show tunes fails, thanks to stunt casting, poor singing and dancing, and the incompatibility of the two art forms.

60
The New York Times
Dana Stevens
Even though Love's Labour's Lost is, in showbiz terms, a turkey stuffed with chestnuts, you wouldn't trade it for a pot of gold.

58
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
William Arnold
It's never hugely engaging and it's instantly forgettable, but it has a certain goofy charm.

58
Entertainment Weekly
Lisa Schwarzbaum
Too many moments of evident labor weigh this clever production down. To quote the playwright: ''Your wit's too hot, it speeds too fast, 'twill tire.''

50
Chicago Tribune
Marc Caro
Filling his movie with bright colors and giddy energy, Branagh has made a labor of love in which the labor is all too apparent.

50
Newsweek
David Ansen
Labour teeters on the edge of the amateur. Yet it's hard not to root for its moonstruck spirit, or to succumb to the panache of the pastiche.

50
Philadelphia Inquirer
Desmond Ryan
Has its moments of charm, but it's ultimately a fascinating failure that surely looked better on paper than it does on the screen.

50
USA Today
Mike Clark
Even at its best, the movie plays like a clip reel.

50
Christian Science Monitor
David Sterritt
It's all very colorful, but the movie's diverse elements clash as often as they cooperate.

50
Salon.com
Charles Taylor
Love's Labour's Lost is flawed, but Kenneth Branagh remains our greatest living interpreter of Shakespeare.

40
TV Guide
Ken Fox
As if to prove that light romantic comedy can be just as difficult to stage as Shakespeare, Kenneth Branagh fails at both, simultaneously.

40
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
Branagh's take on the play comes right up to the edge of disaster but stubbornly refuses to leap in.
30
LA Weekly
Ella Taylor
Branagh has cut, pasted and aggressively abridged Love's Labour's Lost, and piled it high with fancy visuals to make sure we get the drift.

30
Time
Richard Corliss
But this is a sloppy job, both in little goofs...and in the cast's gung-ho amateurism. It's like Shakespeare done by the "Fame" kids.

30
Dallas Observer
Gregory Weinkauf
Taken as a whole, the movie seems to be searching for a harmony it never really achieves.

25
San Francisco Chronicle
Mick LaSalle
A stink bomb of a movie.

20
Film.com
Robert Horton
These are good people, yet the director has them carrying on like community theater actors playing to the balcony. It isn't fair to them, and it isn't fitting for Shakespeare.

20
Los Angeles Times
Kenneth Turan
It ought to be delightful, but it isn't.

20
Village Voice
J. Hoberman
Hamming shamelessly as Berowne, Branagh is overseasoned for his part ... he's as desperate as a veteran social director at a Catskills hotel about to fold.

16
Portland Oregonian
Kim Morgan
An atrocity exhibition from start to finish.

10
Chicago Reader
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Misguided version of one of the Bard's best comedies.

10
Slate
David Edelstein
Unfathomably awful.

10
Washington Post
Desson Thomson
KEN, KEN, KEN, not another Shakespeare, pleeeeeeez.


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