William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream

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Matthew C This original film based on the old play by William Shakespeare brings about a visual view of the old play. After reading the book and now watched the movie, there are themes in this film that make me a little disappointed. My first complaint with the film is the dialogue is not 100% accurate with the book. One thing you'd expect from a book adaptation is accuracy which they do for the most part other than the dialogue. To the things I enjoyed. Christian Bale and the rest of the cast bring a good performance of these characters that would for other actors, be difficult to pull off but they do it well. Examples of this would be the film adaptation of "The Outsiders" book by S.E. Hilton and played in film by Tom Cruise, Matt Damon and others. Other good thoughts I had was the music composed by Simon Boswell really gave a little more interest adding onto the emotions by the characters. Another was the sets felt accurate from the book as you would think of the some imaginary places from the book would be. Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 03/25/25 Full Review Lillitu D One of my favourite movies, Kevin Kline, Rupert Everett, Michelle Pfeiffer and Stanley Tucci steal every scene and recite Shakespeare with ease. Calista Flockhart bothered me at first but she grows on you. Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 12/20/24 Full Review David W A fun and well updated version of the play. There are some questionably strange choices in attempting to contemporise this and make it work in cinematic form but they largely work. Production wise this is sumptious to look at and the soundtrack works beautifully. The star studded cast largely cope well with standouts being Kline who is superb as bottom and Stanley Tucci as Puck. All in all its a successful production of the Bards classic, especially as it's not a play that particularly lends itself to this medium. That said I'm not sure Shakespeare purists will be as enamoured and due to the prose itself I doubt it'll convert many who weren't already familiar with the play, so I'm not sure who the target audience for this will actually be. Despite enjoying this myself, it's worth stating that I watched this with my wife who gave up with it about 40 minutes in as the prose simply wasn't for her and the humour simply wasn't to her taste. Never the less it's an attempt to make Shakespeare accessible to the masses and whilst I'm not sure it wholly achieves that aim, it's laudible in its intention and effort. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 08/25/23 Full Review William L Looking down the cast list before watching this film, I did not think that it would be Kevin Kline that would end up the show-stealer, but here we are. Hoffman's updated adaptation of the Shakespeare classic may not win over the purists with its altered setting and rather lighthearted tone, but it is for large sections a rather enjoyable film, particularly when the actors are allowed to get lost in the fun they are having with their roles. The source material doesn't necessarily lend itslf well to uniform character development given the size of the cast and the time restrictions of a feature-length film, but those that get the opportunity to shine do so, particularly Kline's Bottom and Tucci's Puck. Kline's exuberance leaps off the screen and delivers energy that is sorely lacking from conventional adaptations of period theater; his exaggerated theatrics in the final performance are wonderfully lively. The film comes in fits and starts, but when it's moving you'll be plenty entertained. (3/5) Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 04/18/21 Full Review jordan m I was happy to see so illustrious a cast in any movie as most of the praise I would give the movie is directly for their performances and really nothing else whatsoever. Pfeiffer & Kline both did stand-out jobs (though Kline is not a good replacement for the '35 version's Cagney, whose performance was far superior) and Bale is among my favorite actors. The problems I had with this movie were really no fault of its own as this play is just very poor material for film adaptation; had I not seen other versions, read through the plot on Wikipedia and had subtitles on I would've quickly become lost in the movie's complicated-but-uneventful plot & dogged fixation with having the actors speak in Shakespearean verse. I did like that they inserted some dad-joke-level comedy with the donkey mannerisms but I was absolutely blown away that the decision to insert bicycles into the plot was not at some point struck down by the studio. There's rarely been a dumber idea for a gimmick and they didn't use them to change the plot whatsoever, they were just sort of there to prevent the audience from suspending their disbelief. Truly mind-boggling. Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review steve d I have never been a Midsummer Night's Dream fan but this is a great adaptation of it. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 03/30/23 Full Review Read all reviews

William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream

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