A Midsummer Night's Dream

Rating:
Summary: A breathtaking visual delight
Review: Shakespeare's magical tribute to the transforming power of the Feminine has never looked more enchanting. As many others have said, this is thinking person's eye candy. Beautiful scenery and sets, and a cast made in fairy heaven.

While the director may have taken slight liberties in this production, the essential elements - the Chinese box structure, the reality-layering, and the contrasting of Goddess Time with Linear Time, which lie at the very core of the play, are very much intact.

A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tempest are without a doubt The Bard at his most inspired and most magical. This is a gorgeous production and yet another showcase for the seemingly limitless genius of Kevin Kline.

Rating:
Summary: A PLAYFUL ROMP!
Review: One midsummer's night the stars came out! Whether you are a lover of Shakespeare or not this film will definitely catch your fancy.

In a playful romp, Kevin Kline (Dave) as Nick Bottom leads a cast including Michelle Pfeiffer (To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday) as Titania, Stanley Tucci (Road To Perdition) as Puck (Robin Goodfellow), Rupert Everett as Oberon, Calista Flockhart (far better than anything she ever did in Ally McBeal) as Helena, Dominic West as Lysander, Christian Bale as Demetrius and Anna Friel as Hermia.

Kline is exceptional in his role. In fact you could watch his parts alone and still come away feeling rewarded for having done so.

Beautifully set and shot in Tuscany, A Midsummer Night's Dream will become a favorite.

Rating:
Summary: Great Adaptation
Review: This adaptation, although probably not really as Shakespeare intended it, is a well thought out and detailed view of the original play. The dialogue follows the original framework of the play and is interpreted quite well on screen. I particularly like the interpretation of the character Philostrate.

Even if you are not a fan of Shakespearian dialect, this movie is witty and easy to follow, but not too far a greatly embelished, imaginative view of Shakespeare's great play, a Midsummer Night's Dream.

Rating:
Summary: Greatest Story Ever Told
Review: The movie itself is really good and the actors do a fine job. Bikes with lights in the 16th century? Did they even have bikes then? And I KNOW they didn't have anything close to resembling electricity then. I digress.
I love the language in this. Typically Shakespearian, it might be pretty hard to understand at times. But the movie wasn't my disappointment with this disc.
There are NO extras. You're getting a great, great story done by a star-studded cast and done admirably, but unless you happen to speak french, or just LOVE to tinker with your home entertainment system, then this thing is really lacking in special features. As a matter of fact there's not even a "Special Features" link. I don't think the damned trailer is even on this disc.
Now that I've griped about it let me reiterate that this is a great movie. It's the story of 2 couples and some amateur players as well as woodland creatures such as fairies and satyrs. Stan Tucci sparkles as the protaganist Puck. Michelle Pfeiffer is radient as the queen of the fairies, Titania, and Kevin Kline is appropriately over-the-top as Nick Bottom. Puck and Oberon play a joke on Titania by transforming Bottom and charming her eyes to see him as a beautiful creature that she's totally enamored with. The two couples are involved in a web of he loves her, she loves another and another loves him. Oberon wants to set the record straight. Puck mistakes one for the other and the whole story gets turned upside-down and back again in this ancient comedy. The ending brought a tear to my eye as the unknown actor playing a man playing a woman in a play before the lord of the land steals the whole movie in the final act.
The sights and sounds are euphoric and as star studded as this movie is, it comes as a surprise that not many went to see it in the theater.

Rating:
Summary: It could've been so good!
Review: I went and saw a college performance of a Midsummer Night's Dream and it was the funniest thing I've ever seen. My sister and I were rolling in the aisles, crying we were laughing so hard. And so my love of this play was born. So naturally I was excited when I heard there was a movie version coming out. Saw it in the theater and I don't think I even crack a smile once the whole entire movie. It was pleasant, charming and occasionally good-humored. But this is one of the funniest comedies ever, and not one bit of that comes across in the movie. I was extremely disappointed. Now I just need to find a version of the play that the amateur college group performed so much better than this group of seasoned Hollywood veterans.

Rating:
Summary: magical
Review: this is the only version of mnd that brings out the magic, enchantment, and humor of shakespeare's play. and i've seen 3 different versions, incl the rsc film (93). this is the only one where i consistently laughed out loud. only gripe about the movie was the performance of clarissa lockhart whose performance was uneven, sometimes good but too often wooden. the fellow who played the duke wasn't so great, either, but luckily he had a small part.

wonderful

Rating:
Summary: lusty, crusty, and musty
Review: This production is lush and appealing in many ways, but the text is cut severely. This isn't always a problem, but "Midsummer" is one of Shakespeare's shortest plays, and the text is replaced with an "opera's greatest hits" soundtrack and Michelle Pfeiffer's limpid gazing into the camera. Kevin Kline was born to play Bottom and is worth the time spent watching, but why did the director have to resurrect the old "Mrs. Bottom" device to make him seem more "thoughtful"? Callista Flockhart is surprisingly appealing as Helena and Rupert Everett well-cast as a smoldering Oberon, but Stanley Tucci's Puck, although he speaks his lines intelligently, is just oddly cast. I do like the way the fairies are depicted -- lusty, crusty, and musty. But try the Adrian Noble video from the same year for more "magical" production.

Rating:
Summary: Really good piece of work!
Review: I had to watch this movie in class since we were studying Shakespear, and I thought it would be incredibly boring.Boy was I wrong!This was one of the best movies I have ever seen, and I seriously eccomend it!(It has a few PG-13 parts, definetely, but it's still really good)It's also pretty funny!:)

Rating:
Summary: Dreamy or what?
Review: A disappointment, bordering on a disgrace.

Most aspects in this production seem to detract from the main thing, Shakespeare's text. The text is overwhelmed by the settings, the acting, the 'comedy' antics, the over-worked bicycle 'motif' and the cuts. Some locations are beautiful. The village streets are delightful, but not the artificial 'natural' woods, an appalling place! Yet even the attractive settings seem to detract from the play itself. Far the larger part of the 'stellar' cast seems two-dimensional, cardboard cut-outs. They neither grace the text nor convince as characters. Puck and Oberon are particularly tedious and tiresome. The slapstick comedy is embarrassing inane, never remotely funny. The soundtrack gives the impression of being strung together from the most obvious and unimaginative tatters of musical set-pieces. The nudity would in every instance have been better abandoned in favour of another chance to show off Gabriella Pescucci's gorgeous costumes. Most damage is caused by the lazy pacing of the entire production. Against all this even Shakespeare has no chance. A pity because (as the CBS Morning News said) 'Flockhart is a delight'. But one against so many isn't fair.

Rating:
Summary: 'Flockhart a delight' - but...
Review: A disappointment, almost a disgrace!

Almost everything about this production seems to detract from the main thing, Shakespeare's text. That is submereged by the settings, acting, 'comedy' antics, over-done 'bicycle theme' and the cuts. Some locations are beautiful enough (the Italian village streets, but not the appalling 'natural' woods!). Beautiful some secenes may be but the way they are used only detracts from the play. The locations and text never fuse together.

The larger part of the 'stellar' cast seem like cardboard cut-outs. They fail to grace the text or convince as characters. Puck and Oberon are especially tedious and tiresome. The slapstick 'comdey' is pathetically inane, never remotely funny. The soundtrack seems pasted together from bits of the most obvious musical set-pieces. And instead of the frequent nudity it would have been far preferable if the actors been dressed in Gabriella Pescucci's gorgeous costumes!

Maybe the most damaging feature is the somnolent pace of the production. Against all this Shakespeare has no chance. The CBS Morning News was not wholly wrong: 'Flockhart is a delight and Pfeiffer is gorgeous'. But too much was against them.