58
Kline turns in a bravura performance -- he's one of the few in this star-packed cast who actually knows what to do with Shakespeare's poetry.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
70
Hoffman has wedged the play into a weirdly inapposite setting, has stupidly cut and even more stupidly embellished it, and has miscast it almost to a player. And yet the damn thing works: Shakespeare staggers through, mutilated but triumphant.
50
The set design is gung-ho Hallmark (Tinkerbell lights, that sort of thing) with a strong whiff of Fellini (the fairy glade looks like a pre-Raphaelite red-light district).
50
The New York Times by Elvis Mitchell
A parade of incongruities, with performances ranging from the sublime to the you-know-what.
60
Whimsical, intermittently enjoyable but decidedly unmagical.
80
Hoffman (Soapdish, One Fine Day) leads a first-rate cast in an intelligent, fully realized adaptation of Shakespeare's most popular comedy that's at once highly cinematic and true to its source.
75
Chicago Tribune by Michael Wilmington
Most of the original play's magical speeches are preserved here, and however far this film may seem to stray from the original text, the delights remain. [14 May 1999, Friday, p.A]
50
Seattle Post-Intelligencer by Paula Nechak
Shakespeare's comical, all-too-human tale of lust, foreplay and wordplay is buried beneath bad taste.
63
The major flaw, the clash of acting styles, is at least fascinating to observe. [14 May 1999, Life, p.8E]