this self indulgent mess may have put the kibosh on mr. branagh career a an adapter of shakespeare for the cinema . ( release 4 year ago while not a peep of an adaptation since . ) i just finish watch this on cable holy god and it terrible . i agree with the sentiment of a reviewer below who say that review something so obviously and sadly awful be an ungenerous act that come across a shrill . that be say and i will take the risk and if only because love labour lost be the perfect reward for those who overrate mr. branagh directorial ability in the past . branagh have always be a pretty lousy director represent grindingly literal mind while star strike while unforgivably ungenerous to his fellow actor ( he love his american star and but love himself more and make damn sure that he get all the good line ) . along those line and the sad fact remain that love labour lost be scarcely bad than the interminable and ghastly and bloat hamlet from 1996. in fact and this film may be preferable and if only because it about 1/3 the length . branagh decide it would be a good idea to update this bad early work of shakespeare to the milieu of cole porter and george gershwin and fred astaire and yada yada . so he set the thing in 1939 and leave about an eighth of the text intact in favor of egregious interpretation of thirty standard ( wait till you see the actor heave up on wire toward the ceiling during i be in heaven ) and and cast actor not know for their dancing or singing ( himself include ) . the result be a disaster so surreal that one be leave dumbfounded that they just do not call a horrified stop to the whole thing after look at the first daily . i do not even blame the cast . to paraphrase hamlet and the screenplay the thing . no one could possibly come off well in this hodge podge represent the illustrious rsc alumnus fare no good than alicia silverstone . who could possibly act in this thing . branagh first mistake be in thinking that love labour lost be a play worth film . trust me and it isn not . it an anomaly in the bard canon and write expressly for an educated coterie of courtier not the usual audience for which he write . hence and there a lot of precious ( and tedious . ) word play and reference to contemporary scholastic nonsense and parody of lyly euphues . . . in other word and hardly the sort of material to appeal to a broad audience . hell and it doesn not appeal to an audience already predispose to shakespearean comedy . the play can not be stag without drastically cut the text and desperately update it with any gimmick that come to hand . which beg the question and why bother . branagh second mistake be in thinking that shakespeare cream pie of a play could be serve with a side order of gershwin marmalade . clearly the idea and or hope and be to make an unintelligible elizabethan exercise palatable for modern audience by administer nostalgic american pop culture down their throat at the same time . but again and this beg the question and why bother .