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     Alright, I am a huge Shakespeare fan.   I've read and seen so many of his plays. So perhaps I may be judging this film too harshly.  But I was really disappointed.  I have seen better high school productions of Midsummer's than this film.  The main thing that I don't understand in many productions, especially in movies, is why people feel the need to change Shakespeare.  This man obviously knew what he was doing, yet people believe that their changes will improve on his almost perfect plays.  Alright, I will concede that yes, sometimes the changes do work.  This is very rare, but yes, sometimes they do.  I also understand the reason for cutting scenes shorter.  It's understanding that today people have shorter attention spans than the people in Shakespeare's time.  However, I must say that so many of the changes and cuttings in this movie were terrible.

    Alright, my first complaint.  It's a very basic one and it didn't get on my nerves too much.  There is a lot of sexuality in this version.   A bunch of nude people trying to, or actually having sex.  Alright, I know that Shakespeare's plays are full of sexual innuendo, however, I don't think he actually meant for people to be having sex on stage.  Also, this alienates a large part of your potential audience.  Now the movie becomes inappropriate for children.  I believe that Shakespeare is wonderful for any age, especially the comedies.  Yes, Macbeth might be a little too violent for the kiddies, but Comedy of Errors and A Midsummer Night's Dream could easily be fun for younger people.

    Ok, my next complaint is for the casting director.  What was he/she thinking?  First problem with casting...Rupert Everett.  He plays Oberon.   Anyone who is familiar with this play knows that Oberon is a dark brooding, usually large man.  He is very gruff and scary.  Rupert Everett with his clean look and high polished English accent and his fair skin is not who I would've had in mind.

    Also, when you cast Oberon...you need to pay close attention to the casting of Puck.  Puck should be the star of this show.  He has extremely funny lines/scenes.  He is especially humorous when he is on stage with Oberon.  Puck is usually cast as a small, younger, little guy who can easily be pushed around.  He is supposed to be Oberon's lap dog who fears his wrath and therefore he is very obedient.   However, Stanley Tucci is who they picked for puck.  Probably late 30's early 40's fellow.  He appears to be the same age, if not older than Oberon and he's balding.  Um, ok, again, not quite sure what was going through the casting directors mind.

    Now, I don't want to completely lay into he/she.  I was remarkably surprised by Calista Flockheart.  I admit, I am not one of the Ally McBeal fans out there, so when I heard she was in this I didn't have any desire to see it.   She plays Hermia, the love sick loser.  She did a WONDERFUL job and I thought that she made the film a lot better.

    Also, Michelle Pfeiffer pulled in a decent performance as Titania.   However, I must disagree with most of the critics.  I think that Kevin Kline was not good as Bottom.  In fact I thought he was pretty weak.  Now I'm not sure whether or not to blame this on him or the director.  He seemed overly melodramatic the entire time.  I didn't find Bottom's character nearly as funny as he should be.

    The next problem I saw with this movie is the changes they made with the story.  The main one that stuck out to me was the depth that they gave Bottom's character.  For anyone who is familiar with the play, you know that Bottom is a slapstick character.  He is the idiot of the show who is funny simply because he doesn't know how dumb he is.  He is like the Phoebe character on Friends.   However, in this version they make him very conscious of his life and his surroundings.  This doesn't make the movie better, it makes it depressing.  Now the audience sees that Bottom is not happy.  He is sad and that just brings the whole thing down.

    The next problem is really just one little deal but it made me so mad.  Puck has a soliliquoy at the end of the play.  It may be one of the best known ones in all of Shakespeare.  It's the one that is quoted in Dead Poets' Society.  Anyway, it is a wonderful speech and not only do they take lines out of it (and it's not a very long speech to begin with), they also split it up in order to cut to Bottom staring off at Titania longingly.  Ok, noone cares about Bottom.   The speech loses its entire effect when they did that.  Terrible change, terrible!

    So, after reading all this, I'm sure you're wondering why I gave the movie such a good grade.  Well, the supporting cast was pretty good.  The sets were interesting and after all, this is Shakespeare, you can't screw him up that much.