A Midsummer Night's Dream

Wanna see Shakespeare done right? Watch Kevin Kline do Bottom and Stanley Tucci do Puck. This is how you do Shakespeare--not with hystrionics, but with textured interpretations of the lines, spoken meaningfully and convincingly, not just loudly. These two guys do it right, and they make up for anybody else's less-than-perfect renderings. I used to hate the idea of non-Brits doing the Bard, but this outing made me change my mind.

Bicycles and phonograph records pop up in Michael Hoffman's soporific reading of the 1595 comedy of young lust and tampering fairies, this time set in late 19th century Tuscany. Starring wacko Calista Flockhart (ALLY MCBEAL), ethereal Michelle Pfieffer, studly Rupert Everett (MY BEST FRIEND'S WEDDING), puckish Stanley Tucci (BIG NIGHT), plucky Anna Friel, donkey-faced Kevin Kline, smitten Christian Bale, grave David Strathairn (SIMON BIRCH, BAD MANNERS) and passionate Dominic West. Take my word, while the visions appear...slumber.

The film has some nice elements, an etherial look and some nice casting (Kevin Kline, Michelle Pfeiffer). It also has some incredibly bad casting (Stanley Tucci as Puck? David Strathairn as Theseus?)and some fine cast members who are wasted (Roger Rees and Bill Irwin). It's not up to the standards of Branaugh's Much Ado About Nothing, but what is? Enjoyable, but slight.

A quite magical two hours of masterful film making. Performances of great wit and wisdom justify some of the finest costumes and sets I have seen. A pox on any of my countrymen who still insist Americans cannot do Shakespeare. Kevin Klein was magnificent and I trust nobody in World-Wide-Web-Land will tell my wife just how good Michelle Pffifer looked in this! Bravo to all concerned on this splendid, thoughtful and perfectly paced masterpiece. Shakespeare would have been proud, and you can have no greater praise than that.

Forget the fact that Rupert Everett's light-weight performance fails to capture the dual malevolency and tender-heartedness of Oberon. Forget Michelle Pfeiffer in the worst performance of her career. Forget that transplanting the play to 19th Century Italy, while keeping all references to ancient Athens, was a dumb idea. This is just a poorly made movie. In Shakespeare's original play the plot develops and flows naturally. In this film version, dialog and scenes are rearranged disrupting the rhythm. Many of the better lines are cut altogether. Additional visuals are added which have nothing to do with the play, and serve only to slow the action down even further. This version of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" has no sense of timing. Only in the last 15 minutes do things begin to pick up, but by then who cares?

I feel like I am the victim of some terrible practical joke. Why on earth did I waste nine dollars on this movie? How can Fox pass this off as 'A Midsummer Nights Dream' with a straight face? They managed to remain true to the Shakespearean language while completely massacring its deeper meanings. To place the name 'William Shakepeare's' before the title of this movie is an insult to the best writer in history.

Having studied 'The Tempest' at school anyone who knows me knows of my remarkably low opinion of Shakespeare. I think he's utterly over rated and his plots are weak and making up words his nothing to be proud of. Yes he was talented but is it strictly nessesary to dedicate a SATS paper to him? I don't think so. Yes I hate Shakespeare and I'm not embarrassed in the least to say that i don't understand a word of his plays. However I enjoyed this film. Which coming from me means a lot. The cinematography was good enough to make up for the language and the acting was good enough that i actually understood what was happening. The moment the film finished i had to rewind it and watch it again.