SOURCE: Bemrose, John. “What Muddled Dreams May Come.” Maclean's 112, no. 20 (17 May 1999): 61.

In the following review, Bemrose assesses the 1999 film version of A Midsummer Night's Dream, starring Kevin Kline and Michelle Pfeiffer and directed by Michael Hoffman. Bemrose praises the performances of Kline as Bottom and Pfeiffer as Titania, but finds fault with the rest of the film, which seems to be, in Bemrose's opinion, a battle between a “tedious Hollywood costume drama” and an effort to remain true to Shakespeare's play.

After Shakespeare in Love, Hamlet, Romeo + Juliet and all the other recent plunderings of Shakespeare, it was only a matter of time until someone got around to making a new version of A Midsummer Night's Dream. After all, it is the most perennially popular of Shakespeare's comedies, with a ready-made audience of millions who have studied it in school, or seen it acted in theatres great and...