Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #784 in DVD
• Released on: 2002-09-09
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: Dubbed, PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English, Italian
• Subtitled in: Dutch, French, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 115 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
By far the best thing about director Michael Hoffman's A Midsummer Night's Dream is the extraordinary all-star cast, which follows the precedent created by Kenneth Branagh's Italian-set romantic Shakespeare comedy, Much Ado About Nothing (1993), of mixing major Hollywood stars--here Kevin Kline and Michelle Pfeiffer--with top British talent, in this instance Christian Bale, Rupert Everett, Roger Rees, David Strathairn and Dominic West. Kline makes a fine Nick Bottom, with Pfeiffer equally good as the fairy queen Titania and Everett brooding effectively as Oberon. Unfortunately, while both look ravishing, it is hard to tell which actress between Anna Friel (Brookside) and Calista Flockhart (Ally McBeal) gives the most wretched performance. Both are completely out of their depth the moment they begin to speak, and utterly outclassed by the excellent Sophie Marceau.

Shot in Tuscany and set in the 19th century, parts of the film are extraordinarily beautiful, while other sections could have benefited from some judicious special effects magic. This is not a bad movie, but it is rather uninspired, lacking any real imaginative grasp of the play. In contrast, the much less well known and lower budget Royal Shakespeare Company version of 1996 positively revels in the fantastically surreal possibilities this timeless text. --Gary S Dalkin

Special Features
2.35 Wide Screen
16:9 Wide Screen
DVD 9
French\German\Spanish
English\German
English
Region 2
Dolby Digital 5.1 English French German Spanish
Dolby Digital 5.1
Dutch\French\German\Spanish

Synopsis
Michael Hoffman's film adaptation of Shakespeare's magical romantic comedy features an all-star cast that includes Michelle Pfeiffer, Rupert Everett, Kevin Kline, Stanley Tucci, Calista Flockhart, Christian Bale, Anna Friel, and many others. Peasants, posh lovers, and faeries all collide in an enchanted forest, leading to mishaps and misadventure.

Customer Reviews

Oh Dear Lord, Make It STOP!
How can I communicate the aberration that this represents?
I hope that a number of you will be repelled simply to hear that the roles of Hermia and Helena are taken (and then forgotten about) by those mascots of "Pretty but Pointless", Calista Flockhart and Anna Friel. Calista Flockhart rides a Penny Farthing bicycle and blows the tumbling tendrils of hair off her forehead regularly - but it gets worse, even when the talent gets more accomplished.
Stanley Tucci would get laughed off a senior school stage for the way that he tries to invest Puck with thoughtfulness and fun: Jimmie Krankee would have done a better job. Rupert Everett's Oberon is reminescent of a Studio 54 Go-Go dancer murmuring something he has a distant memory of, and Kevin Kline's gurning Bottom made me feel like setting fire to something.
Despite having a bunch of very pretty people (and, in Michelle Pfeiffer's Titania, a certified, Grade A beauty), this is a version of Shakespeare's comic masterpiece without a single ounce of sex in it. It would have been infinitely better as a Vogue fashion spread and accompanying touring exhibition.
Heinously awful.

An inadequate version
Although visually attractive, there is little to praise in this version.
The text is so full of delights that it musty have taken real effort to come up with such a tedious version. The comic elements were especially lack lustre. Nothing would induce me to sit through it again.

Best version I've seen so far of this entertaining play
I've only one minus really on this production, that this Oberon isn't quite as good as the Oberon in the Beeb's Shakespeare Retold set - that Oberon was quite wonderful although the production generally was mediocre. However, this Oberon is perfectly good in what's such a delightful version of the play. I enjoyed the setting and the bicycles and yet maintaining the Shakespearean ethos throughout.

Particular accolades to Kevin Kline. Brilliant performance. Worth having really just for him!