Rating: 
Summary: Funny but with a reductive transposition
Review: The play is there, or most of it. It is funny and light, though a little bit too spectacular. Shakespeare requires and deserves some simplicity in the special effects to make the text more effective. The magic of the play is nevertheless with us : imbroglios, funny sexual innuendo, puns, etc. And of course the end is the triple wedding ceremony with a fourth one (Titania and Oberon) behind and a fifth one that gives a tragic vision of what happens when parents or social circumstances refuse love and impose fake weddings : this leads to death and it is the play in the play that is made funny by the inability of the amateur actors to perform tragedy and also by their creativity in having a wall played by a man and the moon replaced by a lantern held by the man in the moon, or even by ythe replacement of a roaring lion by a barking and biting poodle. Yet I am afraid that the transposition of the play into the finishing 19th century is kind of naive and also adds too many gadgets of the « modern » world, especially bikes. The result is too anecdotic and the humor is no longer on the situation among the young people, but too much in the use, abuse and misuse of these bikes. It also makes the dilemma of getting married with the man chosen by the father or getting executed or becoming a nun kind of silly and out of place because mostly impossible at the end of the 19th century. What's more the two couples of young people are supposed to be sixteen or seventeen in the play, children in a way, and they are obviously adults, too old for the part, too old to be that naive and fresh. Finally I am afraid that turning Puck into an old man is not a very good idea. He has to be inexperienced and innocently sloppy in his work, hence he has to be a very young fairy. Good entertainment in spite of all those negative rermarks.
Rating:
Summary: Fun... but could be better
Review: asthetically, the movie was grand. The costumes and locations were beautiful. However, the acting didn't impress me. Tucci was a fine Puck, Pfeiffer a beautiful and regal Titania... but past those two, I was not wholly impressed. Little was done to at ALL express the characters of Demetrius and Lysander, I got no feel for them whatsoever in the movie... their characters did not show through at all. Hermia was wonderful, she played the role fabulously. Calista Flockhart, however, did not do the part of Helena justice. She whined throughout the whole thing, making Helena two dimensional and annoying. (although, I must say I'm rather critical of her because after being Helena in a play of MND myself, I've learned a lot)
Many important parts of the script were cut out, which left the play lacking in many important aspects. The direction was fair, at best. I absolutely love the play, therefore I do enjoy the movie, despite some of the mediocre acting.
Rating: 
Summary: Light and Frothy, but Enjoyable
Review: This production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" is more concerned with visual elements than with the story. The cast was clearly chosen with an eye towards how they would look, and the costumes and sets drip with sensuality, light and color. There are more naked scenes in this film than I think I have seen in any other Shakespeare production. (Artfully covered, of course, but still gratuitous.) A real Fairy Tale feel, like one would find in a soft-light photograph-series book.
The actors acquit themselves well, with Kevin Kline and Calista Flockhart giving the standout performances as Bottom and Helena. Flockhart in particular is a pleasant surprise. Michelle Pfeiffer lends a mature sexuality to Titania and is very appropriate for the role. Stanley Tucci lacks the sinister quality associated with Puck. The remaining stable of actors are pretty but not notable. Max Wright (The dad on "ALF") puts in a good turn as Robin Starveling. All in all, this is a light effort with good points outweighing flaws. It is fun to watch, and I think that may be the most important thing when dealing with "A Midsummer Night's Dream." Until a better production comes along, this DVD will do nicely.
Rating:
Summary: A Midsummer's Night's Dream
Review: "A Midsummer Night's Dream" is a fantastic but confusing movie. It's a chaotic film about love, family, friendship, and 19th century family traditions. There's a girl named Hermia and a guy named Demetrius. They're going to get married, but Hermia loves another guy named Lysander. Demetrius loves Hermia and wants to marry her, but before, he had told a girl named Helena that he would get married to her. Helena and Hermia had been friends since they were little. Now Helena's dying to marry Demetrius, and Hermia wants to marry Lysander, but only Demetrius has Hermia's father's permission to marry her, and in the 19th century, if a a daughter didn't want to get married to the guy that her father wanted her to get married to, then her father could kill her, or she had to stay single for the rest of her life. So Hermia and Lysander run away into the forest to be together. Demetrius wants to know where Hermia is, and Helena knows where, and Helena tells Demetrius where they are so that she could get some attention from Demetrius. So they're in the forest with Lysander and Demetrius going after Hermia and Helena going after Demetrius. There's these faries who are there, and the this farie sees this and he says it's all messed up and he tries to fix it, so he tells his "messenger" Puck, the put this flower-juice kind of thing on their eyes, and when they get up, they'll fall in love with the first thing they see. Puck messes up with the flower juice, and he puts it on the wrong guy's eye. So what ends up happening is that Demetrius AND Lysander are now in love with Helena, and no one's in love with Hermia. After the farie guy sees that Puck messed up, he asks Puck to fix the mess that he's done, and he makes Lysander fall back in love with Hermia, and now Demetrius loves Helena, and their father ends up finding them, and he finally lets them get married because Lysander loves Hermia, and Hermia loves Lysander and Demetrius loves Helena, and now Hermia, and Helena loves Demetrius. He also has these two "important people's" permission to get married as well, who wouldn't let them get married at first. The other story that's also going on in this film is that there's this guy that really wants to be a screenwriiter/actor and he isn't having any success. One day, Puck turns him into a half donkey-half human being, and puts the flower juice on the "farie queen"'s eyes, and she falls in love with the actor. The guy faerie puts the juice on her eyes again, and she falls in love with the guy faerie. When the actor/screenwriter wannabe wakes up, he finds himself in the middle of nowhere, and he decides the write a story/play on what had just happenned to him. He peforms it, and the audience likes it. So his dream of becoming a screenwriter/actor comes true.
Rating: 
Summary: asdrf
Review: Shakespeare's A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREam is a good movie. i think that the cast was amazing and the way the characters are portrayed are just as shakespeare would have casted it himself.
Rating:
Summary: A Midsummer's Night's Dream Come True
Review: The special effects and settings of such a movie kept me intregued the whole time I was watching it. It felt like what Shakespeare had intended.
Colista Flockhart did a marvelous job on her performance as Helena. I never would have that that a roll like that could be played by the notoious Ally McBeal. Kline also did a superb job as his roll as Bottom the Weaver. A different style of acting on the part of bottom, but still fabulous. The costuming and the way the actors played out the movie as they did becomes one of my favorite Shakespearean plays next to Much Ado About Nothin. This movie is a MUST SEE!
Rating:
Summary: A Midsummer Night's Dream
Review: Well, I am writing this as a review for a class at summer camp and I really did not get the whole picture. From my point of view there are 4 main people who are supposed to marry different people than who they really love. They go out in the woods on bikes to run away and find trouble with the faeries. The faeries make both Demitrius and Lisander fall for Helena and the other chic is left without a dude. In the end the faeries fix the mess and the two couples go get married and see a play with another high class couple. There were many more events than that that happened in the movie like the Faerie Queen falling for an actor and finally getting back with the cute one, but overall I think it was not one of the best performances of Shakespeare's plays.
Rating: 
Summary: There are things in this comedy that will never please...
Review: This ambitious attempt to film the Shakespearean fantasy has much to recommend it, but in the end falters on the rocks of its own lack of imagination. Director Michael Hoffman starts out promisingly, showing an interesting society of fairies living in the enchanted woods and depicting Puck riding around on a giant snail. But Robin Goodfellow quickly changes in his snail for a bicycle, and the film soon becomes as mundane as the sprightly elf's choice of transportation. The performances are a frustrating mixed bag. Anna Friel's sexy and vulnerable Hermia is the undeniable standout in the cast, projecting such depth and humanity in a role that few actresses make much impact in that her depiction approaches the overused Shakespearean mantle of "definitive." Impressive turns are also offered by Roger Rees as a browbeaten Peter Quince, Bill Irwin as a surprisingly moving Snug, and Calista Flockhardt - who is well-cast and effective as Helena, although her whiney characterization is so reminiscent of her TV turn as Ally MacBeal that it was difficult for this viewer to suspend my disbelief to the point where I could fully accept her in the role. Coming off less well are David Strathairn, who gives such a low-key and flavorless performance as Theseus that the viewer wonders if he was told that the cameras were on when he was playing his scenes; Rupert Everett who offers little more than a stiff line recitation as Oberon; and Stanley Tucci as Puck, who was a victim of director Hoffman's inability to use any cinematic magic to make the character come off as anything approaching fairylike. Special mention should be made to the producer's casting coups of Kevin Kline and Michelle Pfeiffer. Kline, of course, is widely regarded as the finest American Shakespearean actor of his generation and his reputation as a farceur makes his casting as Bottom seem inspired. But Kline not only offers a disappointingly lifeless characterization, but Hoffman made a fatal error in trying to "flesh out" the part by making him a hen-pecked husband who is constantly trying to avoid a shrewish wife that was never anything Shakespeare imagined: indeed Hoffman quarantines her from the other characters by writing her dialogue in Italian, a clumsy device that only serves to make the aberration seem like even more of a sore thumb. But unquestionably the low point of the film is the incompetent performance of Pfeiffer as Titania. Her delivery of the Shakespearian dialogue is so unconvincing that she comes off as a performer in a high school play. It's time that producers realized that casting "movie names" like Pfeiffer, Keanu Reeves, Ethan Hawke and Jack Lemmon in classical roles that they are ill-equipped to play may help them raise the budgets for their projects, but it ultimately sinks the artistic aspirations of the endeavor. But for all its faults, this "Midsummer" is almost redeemed by a magnificent rendering of the "Pyramus and Thisby" play-within-a-play in Act V. This is actor-proof material, to be sure; but the players depicting the Mechanicals as well as the Lovers supporting them in the audience do a miraculous job of playing the scene for both its farcical elements and for the very dramatic moments that lie just beneath the text. If the entire film had been played at this level, it might have been one of the great masterpieces of Shakespeare on film; but as it is, it is little more than patchwork.
Rating:
Summary: Nicely done
Review: Midsummer's Night Dream was my first introduction to Shakespeare, and I have never forgotten it. I loved it from the start. In this version the time is changed (I don't generally like modern settings of Shakespeare, but this one is acceptable), and the acting is great. Kevin Kline is outstanding as Bottom, and adds so much depth to this character. Tucci is great as Puck, and Calista Flockhart turns in a decent performance as Helena. The special effects add a lot, as it is, after all, a fairy kingdom. The play within the play is outrageously funny and unexpectly touching. Still, it is the portayal of the characters that make this production outstanding. It adds a certain tenderness to the play that I never fully realized before.
Rating:
Summary: A Big Disappointment
Review: I watched my video of the 1999 film of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" together with borrowed videos of the 1969 and 1935 versions, and the comparisons were very interesting. I was surprised to find that I liked the 1935 film the best of the three (except for the tacky Korngold intrusions on Mendelssohn's incidental music) and the 1999 version the least. I feel that removing a play from its original time and place is largely a ticket-selling gimmick and distorts the original cultural and emotional context. Nick Bottom in a city-slicker suit just doesn't work for me. And 16th-century expressions of Celtic/Anglo-Saxon fairy lore don't have any place in 19th-century Greco-Latin/Catholic Italy. The soundtrack was a jarring mish-mosh of musical styles obviously intended to sell CD's. And Stanley Tucci as an oversized, middle-aged Puck?! (No one, not even Ian Holm, can come close to Mickey Rooney in that role.) However, I did think that the poignance of Flute's speech in his Thisbe role was the high point of this version -- a very touching departure from the usual broad comedy of the play-within-a-play -- and it's the only reason I'm not getting rid of my video. (Similarly, the best part by far of the 1969 Peter Hall TV movie was the play-within-a-play and the Nick Bottom role in it.)
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