Excellent adaptation.

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

I've worshiped Shakespeare all my life so I fled from this film since its debut, afraid of a bad Hollywood adaptation of the Bard. I watched it only a few years ago, when I learned that Anna Friel was part of the cast and I must confess I liked it quite a bit. The mixture of English actors - experienced in Shakespeare, connoisseurs of his work and at ease with his infamous iambic pentameters - with Americans and their nasal English and incompatible "RR" with the poet's lexicon, is often disastrous but in this case the result is not bad. The cast is extremely irregular, there is no doubt. The film, however, is much better than I'd expected.Kevin Kline is a good Nick Bottom, Roger Rees brings his known talent to Peter Quince, and the young Sam Rockwell does quite well as Flute. Among the romantic couples, David Strathairn and Sophie Marceau are dull and plain as the characters they play, Theseus and Hippolyta. Anna is wonderful and perfect as Hermia; also pretty good is the Lysander of Dominic West. Christian Bale is only remarkable for his then terrible diction, as Demetrius. I didn't expect to say this, but Calista Flockhart was a great Helena and her scenes with Anna are the best thing in the movie.In the forest, things are not as great. Stanley Tucci is a good actor, but his Puck has absolutely nothing to do with the character, whether in the physical or the personality. Rupert Everett is also completely lost as Oberon. Together, they look like two male strippers and are more into a movie about Sodom and Gomorra than Shakespeare. Michelle Pfeiffer is awful as Titania. Her English is the most American of all, her familiarity with Shakespearean verses is none, and she recites the lines as a theater student. Moreover, she looks much older than Ruppert and their chemistry - both acting and sexual - is zero.Overall, a very good film, and a great way to know the play.

The acting in general was not very convincing, especially not as is required for a good Shakespearean rendition. Most lines are uttered without real feeling and with clichéd emotion, facial expression and gesture. Calista Flockhart (Helena), Sam Rockwell (Francis Flute; especially in the play-in-the-play) and Kevin Kline (Bottom) were best, my favourite being Calista Flockhart who brings Helena's emotions convincingly with great authenticity. I have read that "this was Kevin Kline's play", but I disagree because the character of Bottom has a lot of potential as a funny Shakespearean stereotype (but this was probably acted out under the director's guidance). Only in the end did he really show himself in the play-in-the-play. Michelle Pfeiffer (Titania) and especially Rupert Everett (Oberon) show us that the failing fairies' relationship was not only due to adultery and jealousy, but also because of the lack of emotional depth in their relationship - which speaks out of their performance. The biggest disappointment is that I don't see the Shakespearean stereotypes played out on screen, Bottom is supposed to be the idiot with a carpe diem lifestyle, but he is portrayed too gravely, which stifles a lot of potential humorous approaches to the character. Puck also didn't come to life as the witty and mischievous knave he is. I also feel that the director could have done more with the mute characters on screen, their short scenes are there to set a mood, but they seem superfluous.The soundtrack was nothing spectacular and the sound-effects and background noises were cheap clichés we see everywhere nowadays (cf. forest background sounds). Most of the actors' voice-acting was also uninspired, and does not do homage to the verbal virtuosity of Shakespeare's play.I sincerely wonder whether the director knows of the potential comedy that lurks in the play, because I did not have the feeling that I was watching a comedy at all. The play-in-a-play was in it's 10-minute totality more funny than the whole 100 preceding minutes. There were no genuinely funny situations, and the movie was absolutely not original in creating these, Instead, it relied too much on the inherent comedy of the incompatibility of some characters and emotions in certain situations, and so took a too passive and unoriginal approach. The movie lets a lot of very obvious occasions of potential funny situations slip by, even the potential very comic situation with the chink in the wall slip (hint: "I kiss the wall's hole, not your lips at all"). The only scene that comes closest to a comic situation is when Helena runs away from a chasing Demetrius and Lysander, but even this scene was more dramatic than funny. Bottom's lying with Titania too was also disappointing.

A Midsummer Night's Dream has always been one of my all time favorite plays. I thought this movie did a slam bang job. I thought that Stanley Tucci was refreshing as Puck. Most of the time people envision Puck as a young happy-go-lucky fairy. I loved it. It reminded me to always look at a different point of view. The best choice for the film was Kevin Kline as Bottom. Bottom is one of my all time favorite characters. Kline's performance was spot on. Rupert Everett was a superb choice for Oberon. I believe this to be one of the best adaptations for a Shakespeare play that I have ever seen. That includes Mr. Branagh, whom I respect very much.I recommend this movie to any Shakespeare lover. Or to any movie lover for that reason

The movie "A Midsummer Night's Dream" directed by Michael Hoffman was just about two hours long, the average length of a movie, but it was the longest two hours of my life. This misguided attempt at a classic uses many lines from the play, but the way the actors struggle getting the language down-pat changes the interesting, fun, and engaging script to a boring mess. In the book, Bottom (portrayed by Kevin Kline) thinks he is something extra special, as he does in some moments of the movie, but as they tried to add some depth to his character, we saw moments where he felt dejected, which didn't really flow with the character Shakespeare originally intended Bottom to be. It is also worth mentioning that although Titania did have a train of fairies in both the book and the movie, Shakespeare wrote them as male and Hoffman used female sprites. Oscar nominee Michelle Pfeiffer is a talented actress with a lot of experience, but perhaps not the best casting choice for Titania. Although she has the beauty and grace of the fairy queen, she seemed uncomfortable making lengthy speeches. On the other hand, I was surprised to see Calista Flockhart do a great portrayal of desperate Helena and use her frog-like facial features to entice the audience to watch the scenes. Unfortunately, Calista Flockhart provides some of the only star quality in the entire film. There are some strange contradictory moments; for example, when Robin says he will "Put a girdle round the earth in forty minutes", just like it is written in the play, he uses a turtle (a notable representative of slow movement) to get around. The plot of the movie is crucial to a story like this, and although it usually stays on point with Shakespeare's play, there are momentary lapses that don't fit in- like the use of the bicycles, which is just silly. The complex love quadrangle between Hermia, Lysander, Helena and Demetrius is recognizable, but not quite as tragic and confusing as you can picture when reading the book. This play is supposed to be a comedy, but the only laughter comes a brief moment at the end of the movie where a dog (which isn't in William Shakespeare's version) comes running onto the stage during the tradesmen's performance. Other than that, the humour is turned into boredom. Another reason why I found this movie boring was because it was not aesthetically pleasing. The set looks extremely unreal and there is not much more to elaborate about it. Likewise, I found the costuming to have little excitement, and I was especially disappointed with Bottom's ensemble. I had pictured an actual ass-head when reading the book, but all he had was donkey ears and some excess hair. The type of music was passable, but the sheer volume of it was unsatisfying. The only part of the setting that was identical to the book was which scenes took place at night and which scenes took place during the day. I would not recommend watching the 1999 film version of A Midsummer Night's Dream to anyone that gets confused easily, or any students having a test on the play. Instead of understanding the play more because of watching the play and getting to see the set and characters' body language, I am more perplexed than ever. There are obvious similarities, like many parts of the script and the relationships between the characters, but there is a dictionary full of differences- one huge one being that it takes place several centuries later in history. If you are in the mood to see a dramatic, romantic comedy, I suggest watching Enchanted, which brought in double the laughs, smiles, gasps and money in the U.S. Box Office.