A Midsummer Night's Dream: Critic Reviews

This Midsummer Night's Dream shows how high the bar has been raised by Shakespeare in Love. The allure and cleverness of that film, not to mention its far more Shakespearean spirit, make it a hard act for a hodgepodge to follow.

Dangles uncertainly between mannerly devotion to Big Will and susceptibility to a recent cinematic pandemic, the update.

If there is sacrilege afoot, I'm not enough of a scholar to spot it.

Needs a flight of fancy to be truly memorable!

Gentle and lighthearted!

The film is never a chore to watch, but others have done better by the Bard.

I remain skeptical about the ability of even the best American actors to read Shakespeare's lines without giving the impression that they are enduring very painful cultural root canal work.

Intermittently enjoyable!

Hoffman charts a middle course, and travels it quite well -- his version is neither as elaborately baroque as Max Reinhardt's 1935 film treatment nor as starkly sexual as Peter Brooks's celebrated 1970 staging.

Sufficiently contemporary and fresh!

Sumptuous version, both earthy and enchanted.

Your high school English teacher would approve, and parts are terrifically enjoyable.

Bathed in sunshine, stardust and star power, this 'Dream' should be required viewing for anyone who insists Shakespeare is stuffy and dull. ...this is Shakespeare for the masses.

It has fun and makes you laugh.

Injecting the film with fun and pathos, Kline makes a superb Bottom; it's his play and he acts it to the hilt.

The execution of the Bard's comic work is less than sparkling.

It's a wildly entertaining romp that should delight fans of this year's Oscar-winner Shakespeare in Love.

As a movie, unfortunately, it doesn't quite jive.

What joy to hear an entire film audience roar with glee at Moonshine, Lion and Wall.

Michael Hoffman's adaptation of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream is a delightful way to spend the summer solstice evening, or any other, for that matter.

Unfortunately, despite the wonderful locations, sets, costumes, and strong acting, this adaptation has a strange lack of magic or chemistry between players.

Hoffman, who did the adaptation himself, cuts and pastes portions of the play into his movie with a clunky hand. And the avalanche of star power nearly sinks the ship.

Sporting a shamelessly commercial all-star cast and textually shorn to make a comfortable, diverting two-hour flick, it's the lack of intellectual pretensions that finally makes this version so endearing.

I felt like a kid on the outside of the club house looking in -- and not seeing anything through the window that made me feel like I was missing out.

This film adaptation of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream," just might be the best one ever made.