Advanced Search >
Help Me Search

DVD

Upcoming Release Calendar
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores

Recent DVD/Video Releases

sort by namesort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Love's Labour's Lost

EMAILPRINTMiramax Films

Love's Labour's Lost reviews
35
N/A User Score:

Generally unfavorable reviews

Based on 29 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 0 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >

Movie Info

Genre(s): Romance

Written by: Kenneth Branagh
William Shakespeare (play)

Directed by: Kenneth Branagh

Release Date:
Theatrical: June 9, 2000
DVD: December 19, 2000

Running Time: 93 minutes, Color

Origin: France / UK / USA

Summary

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.

What The Critics Said

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.

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >
67

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

The effect is weird but it, actually, kind of works, illuminating both Shakespeare and the artifice of musicals.

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >
63

San Francisco Examiner G. Allen Johnson

The writer-director has come up with a sumptuous, happy piece of fluff.

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >
58

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

It's never hugely engaging and it's instantly forgettable, but it has a certain goofy charm.

Read Full Review >
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.''

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >
50

USA Today Mike Clark

Even at its best, the movie plays like a clip reel.

Read Full Review >
50

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

It's all very colorful, but the movie's diverse elements clash as often as they cooperate.

Read Full Review >
50

Salon.com Charles Taylor

Love's Labour's Lost is flawed, but Kenneth Branagh remains our greatest living interpreter of Shakespeare.

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >
30

Dallas Observer Gregory Weinkauf

Taken as a whole, the movie seems to be searching for a harmony it never really achieves.

Read Full Review >
25

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

A stink bomb of a movie.

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >
20

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

It ought to be delightful, but it isn't.

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >
16

Portland Oregonian Kim Morgan

An atrocity exhibition from start to finish.

Read Full Review >
10

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Misguided version of one of the Bard's best comedies.

Read Full Review >
10

Slate David Edelstein

Unfathomably awful.

Read Full Review >
10

Washington Post Desson Thomson

KEN, KEN, KEN, not another Shakespeare, pleeeeeeez.

Read Full Review >

What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 0.0 (out of 10) based on 0 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Popular on CBS sites: SEC Football | NFL | Video Game Cheats | iPhone | Video Game Reviews | Notebooks | Antivirus Software

About CBS Interactive | Jobs | Advertise

© 2009 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy (UPDATED) | Terms of Use