SOURCE: Elley, Derek. Review of Love's Labour's Lost. Variety 378, no. 1 (21 February 2000): 36-7.

In the following review of Kenneth Branagh's 2000 film adaptation of Love's Labour's Lost, Elley provides a generally positive assessment, noting only minor flaws, but also considers the downside of marketing the work to a mass audience.

Love's Labour's Lost is a luscious labor of love. As if to prove the two extremes of his affection for the Bard, Kenneth Branagh has followed his four-hour, belt-and-braces version of Hamlet with one of the most audacious adaptations of Will's works, hacked down into a faux, old-style Hollywood tuner and given the handle “A Romantic Musical Comedy.” Textual purists are likely to flutter their hands in horror, but anyone with an open mind and a hankering for the simple pleasures of Tinseltown's Golden Age will be rewarded with 90-odd minutes of often silly, frequently charming and always honest entertainment...