Love's Labours Lost (2000)

Branagh has a clever idea to turn the play into a Hollywood musical, and through the first two musical numbers, I believed it was almost going to work -- casting "actors who can sing" rather "singers who can act" (as he mentions in the "behind-the-scenes featurette" on the DVD) is a slightly questionable call, but the four main couples are pleasant (Lillard is the weak link among the men and, sadly, Silverstone, much as I loved her in Clueless, is a little too Valley for this role) and the ensemble "I Won't Dance" number, building on the modest success of the boys doing "I'd Rather Charleston With You", goes well.  

Unfortunately, we then get into the Don Armado subplot and are treated to an absolutely hideous rendition of "I Get a Kick Out of You."  I know it's supposed to be bad, but instead of being bad-funny it was just bad-painful.  The synchronized swimming in the scene that followed was bad-funny-cute, like Miss Piggy doing synchronized swimming in the Great Muppet Caper.  The choreography during McEwan's go at "The Way You Look Tonight" that followed shortly after this was also bad-painful.  So now my attitude has been dragged from "hopeful" to "gritting my teeth and hoping we don't see Armado again."  Branagh may have felt the same way, because nearly all of the "play within the play" is cut, and when we watched the deleted scenes, we could see why.  Of course, the "problem" with cutting these scenes is that this leaves the Don Armado subplot completely unresolved, though frankly, he could have been entirely removed from the film without any great loss.  

A few good things to note:

• the colors and sets and (most of) the costumes evoke the period he's going for
• the newsreels are excellent
• Adrian Lester does nicely with his solo in "I've Got a Crush on You" 
• and last, and best, Richard Clifford is brilliant as Boyet, and steals every scene he's in.  He does have the best lines in the whole play, but he captures the role perfectly