I really wanted to like this film, which led to a continuing sense of disappointment as I watched it. The idea of updating the Shakespeare play into a musical set in the ‘30s was wonderful. They added music from that era which managed to fit into the storyline quite well. The production was gorgeous. But eveything was just a mess. Switching between the Shakespeare, the newsreels and the songs created definite tempo problems for the audience. I felt it would have been better if they had taken out the Shakespearian verse and simply updated the entire play. It seemed as if the casting was done because this one was good at the Shakespeare, this one was good at the singing, this one at the dancing, etc., and hardly anyone was good at all of it. Especially Alicia Silverstone. I loved her in Clueless as well, but is that a good enough reason to keep casting her in roles she can’t handle? A real struggle to get through.

The only reason I didn’t give this a “not worth consuming” was Nathan Lane. Way too cheese-ball for me. I was excited about the concept, but was somewhat disappointed.

Might be good on stage, but as a movie not that great.