I applaud Kenneth Branagh for attempting this film. He's going for Shakespeare + Astaire and Rogers. Unfortunately, he doesn't succeed. Therefore, on the other hand, I must castigate Branagh for not planning it all out more carefully. The film has great potential, and is often a lot of fun. But where the tremendous energy goes slack, it simply becomes grating. In fact, it feels like the whole project was tossed together in as short a time as possible. Here are my complaints and suggestions:
1) Branagh clearly wanted to make a surreal, visually inventive film, but that inventiveness stops dead in its tracks every time it gets going. He'll be playing with the colors, dressing his characters in beautiful and vibrant shades, but then he won't compose his shots so that the color is at its maximum effectiveness. He just throws everything up on screen. The intent with the sets seems to be to make the film more theatrical. I think this is a mistake, especially when, at first, he was going for the visual inventiveness. Something neat will happen, like, for instance, when the men start floating in the air during "Cheek to Cheek". I was hoping for a ceiling dance or something, a midair dance, perhaps. Nope. They just float their in the air like Charlie and Grampa Joe, and flailing like a possessed character in the Evil Dead movies. And during the "No Business Like Show Business" scene, the camera is positioned straight above, ready for the Busby Berkeley number. But no. That shot lasts less than a second.
2) Which leads me to the second complaint: The editing is far too quick. It's headache-inducing at times. Not that the editing shouldn't be quick. It would work if it were paced a little better.
3) Branagh never really utilizes the potential of the older musicals he seems to want to be parodying. He's not bad in segueing into the songs; I was rather impressed on that account. Sometimes he blends the Shakespeare and the Gershwin, especially in the "They Can't Take That Away From Me," which may represent Ira Gershwin's best lyrics. But Branagh never does it for any reason other than a gimmick. He sets the story in 1939 Europe, with WWII breaking out across the continent. The Astaire-Rogers team went on hiatus at that point. It would have been so easy to follow the logical loss of innocence of that age. Instead, the musical stuff feels gimmicky and the WWII stuff feels terribly clunky (especially the climactic montage of the entire war).
4) What's with Alicia Silverstone? I almost want to leave her alone, because it's too easy to criticize. To tell you the truth, she's not as bad as I had envisioned, but she's definitely not up to it. I would say as much about Matthew Lillard, too, but his role is so incidental that it's not bothersome. He is actually in the movie all the time, but has little dialogue. Lillard does have one particularly embarrassing scene - although the embarrassment of its creation belongs to Branagh - where he humps his top hat. But, wait, what am I talking about? This is the guy who cast Keanu Reeves in a Shakespearian movie, not to mention the fact that he was playing Denzel Washington's brother.
But I don't want to tear into Branagh. In fact, I was serious when I wrote that I applaud him for attempting Love's Labours Lost. It's worth a look. Few more interesting movies have been made in the past few years, and I can think of no more interesting failure. 6/10.
1) Branagh clearly wanted to make a surreal, visually inventive film, but that inventiveness stops dead in its tracks every time it gets going. He'll be playing with the colors, dressing his characters in beautiful and vibrant shades, but then he won't compose his shots so that the color is at its maximum effectiveness. He just throws everything up on screen. The intent with the sets seems to be to make the film more theatrical. I think this is a mistake, especially when, at first, he was going for the visual inventiveness. Something neat will happen, like, for instance, when the men start floating in the air during "Cheek to Cheek". I was hoping for a ceiling dance or something, a midair dance, perhaps. Nope. They just float their in the air like Charlie and Grampa Joe, and flailing like a possessed character in the Evil Dead movies. And during the "No Business Like Show Business" scene, the camera is positioned straight above, ready for the Busby Berkeley number. But no. That shot lasts less than a second.
2) Which leads me to the second complaint: The editing is far too quick. It's headache-inducing at times. Not that the editing shouldn't be quick. It would work if it were paced a little better.
3) Branagh never really utilizes the potential of the older musicals he seems to want to be parodying. He's not bad in segueing into the songs; I was rather impressed on that account. Sometimes he blends the Shakespeare and the Gershwin, especially in the "They Can't Take That Away From Me," which may represent Ira Gershwin's best lyrics. But Branagh never does it for any reason other than a gimmick. He sets the story in 1939 Europe, with WWII breaking out across the continent. The Astaire-Rogers team went on hiatus at that point. It would have been so easy to follow the logical loss of innocence of that age. Instead, the musical stuff feels gimmicky and the WWII stuff feels terribly clunky (especially the climactic montage of the entire war).
4) What's with Alicia Silverstone? I almost want to leave her alone, because it's too easy to criticize. To tell you the truth, she's not as bad as I had envisioned, but she's definitely not up to it. I would say as much about Matthew Lillard, too, but his role is so incidental that it's not bothersome. He is actually in the movie all the time, but has little dialogue. Lillard does have one particularly embarrassing scene - although the embarrassment of its creation belongs to Branagh - where he humps his top hat. But, wait, what am I talking about? This is the guy who cast Keanu Reeves in a Shakespearian movie, not to mention the fact that he was playing Denzel Washington's brother.
But I don't want to tear into Branagh. In fact, I was serious when I wrote that I applaud him for attempting Love's Labours Lost. It's worth a look. Few more interesting movies have been made in the past few years, and I can think of no more interesting failure. 6/10.