Rating: 
Summary: Itth Thakethpeare, you thilly gooth.
Review: Why is it such a challenge to present Shakespeare as he originally intended his play to be staged? We COULD have Theseus and Hippolyta in Greek garb, and create the atmosphere of Athens, but NOOO! We have to bring in bicycles and have Bottom and friends wear bowlers. And to spruce things up, let's put characters in the movie that don't even exist in Shakespeare's play. I have it, a little boy who falls asleep reading A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM (how original), and who keeps popping up in every surrealistic scene. And perhaps to cut down on the number of people we have to pay, let's make Theseus and Hippolyta also be Oberon and Titania. Yeah.... THAT'S the ticket.Oh, yes. Let's make the fairies.... FAIRIES! Go on, Oberon, give Puck a big wet one right on the lips. Perfect! The high schoolers will love it. C'mon. How about a performance without gimmicks? Do we really need Bottom and Titania to have really loud and visual sex in a big umbrella? I don't think so. I think Shakespeare's language and a little passable acting would do just fine. If you want a nice performance of A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, I'd suggest the 1935 Cagney/Rooney version. It may be an oldie, but it's still a goodie.
Rating: 
Summary: What a waste of great acting
Review: Why is it that every director seems to need to make their Midsummer Night's Dream production more bizarre than the last? What's wrong with a good, well-acted, well directed production that is true to what Shakespeare wrote? The good thing about this production is the acting. Excellent acting, excellent deliveries. Close your eyes and you'll find this a delight. But open your eyes, and be prepared for bicycles, suspenders, paned windows, dollhouses, and a young boy who pops up here and there -- why? The sets are, uh, well, interesting. Some set designer was given lots of latitude for their imagination. Maybe they think they produced a dream; others will call it a nightmare. If you would like to see what would happen if you stuck Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollock, and Georgia O'Keefe in an art blender and pushed the mix button, you'll like the sets. The costumes are, uh, eclectic. People wearing modern dress mix with those wearing Edwardian, Renaissance, and unidentified era clothing. I suppose this was supposed to be creative. To me, it was just confusing without any benefit. And why did the director invent a prompter for the play-within-a-play? This prompter simply pops in every now and then to correct the actors' lines. And the point of this was, what? Shakespeare didn't think this role was needed, and frankly, neither do I. If you decide to watch this, watch it for the acting and try to pretend that all the other stuff is just a bad dream. More to the point, close your eyes, listen to it, and enjoy it thoroughly. Just don't open your eyes until it's over.
Rating:
Summary: What a waste of great acting
Review: Why is it that every director seems to need to make their Midsummer Night's Dream production more bizarre than the last? What's wrong with a good, well-acted, well directed production that is true to what Shakespeare wrote? The good thing about this production is the acting. Excellent acting, excellent deliveries. Close your eyes and you'll find this a delight. But open your eyes, and be prepared for bicycles, suspenders, paned windows, dollhouses, and a young boy who pops up here and there -- why? The sets are, uh, well, interesting. Some set designer was given lots of latitude for their imagination. Maybe they think they produced a dream; others will call it a nightmare. If you would like to see what would happen if you stuck Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollock, and Georgia O'Keefe in an art blender and pushed the mix button, you'll like the sets. The costumes are, uh, eclectic. People wearing modern dress mix with those wearing Edwardian, Renaissance, and unidentified era clothing. I suppose this was supposed to be creative. To me, it was just confusing without any benefit. And why did the director invent a prompter for the play-within-a-play? This prompter simply pops in every now and then to correct the actors' lines. And the point of this was, what? Shakespeare didn't think this role was needed, and frankly, neither do I. If you decide to watch this, watch it for the acting and try to pretend that all the other stuff is just a bad dream. More to the point, close your eyes, listen to it, and enjoy it thoroughly. Just don't open your eyes until it's over.
Rating:
Summary: A Midsummer NIght Mare
Review: You know reader, of all the movie versions of this favorite Shakespeare play I've seen, I have yet to see any that were really any good. Even the one on P B S left something to be desired. This version ranks among the worst by among other things cutting out much of the play. The costumes are absolutely hideous. The props and special effects are corny. The direction is totally inane. Also there are several scenes suggestive of homosexual and heterosexual sex in the presence of a child whose presence is inappropriate and unexplained which make this Midsummer Night's Dream a real Nightmare! This production treats the play like a kid's fairy tale even though Shakespeare wrote it as a comedy for adults. Hence again the complaint of the homosexual and heterosexual acts of the actors! I give this movie one star for merely being one of my favorite Shakespeare plays, and another star for the elocution of the actors. Other than that this Miramax presentation is pure trash! Instead of being rated PG-13. It should be rated R. I have bought at least two other movie versions of this play from Amazon. Both were as bad as this one if not worse! I really like A Midsummer Night's Dream but would prefer to see it acted on stage without props or costumes, and with all of Shakespeare's poetry intact. Hopefully Amazon can find such a version.
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