Right now there are 7 user reviews of this film and every single one of them is either a 10 or a 1 rating. Neither score is deserved.
Overall, this is a very good filmed play. The approach is unusual, adding some songs and acrobatics in the mix, as well as some cross-gender bits, all of which works well within the magical framework.
The most notable performances, for me, are Isis Hainsworth and Tessa Bonham Jones as Hermia and Helena. The women is other versions I've seen have seemed rather weak-willed and vapid, but here they are smart and personable. Jones Helena is especially remarkable, in that she seems driven less by desperate, pathetic love than by an internal fury that makes her declamations of love and subservience come out like bullets. The best scene is the one in which the criss-crossed lovers fight and woo; it's wonderfully funny and wild.
The other great scene is the final play-within-a play, with Hammed Animashaun grabbing the showy role of Bottom with both hands and full joy. This little play was the great disappointment of Julie Taymor's version of MND, which she made weirdly serious and sad. Here it's down as it should be; as a proto-Mystery Science Theater 3000.
The rest of the performances are fine, but less notable than the standouts. The acrobatics are fun, although one scene of Bottom and Oberon on a bed is remarkably badly filmed, in that it focusses on the bed, which is repetitive and uninteresting, while ignoring most of the silks action on the ceiling. The only excuse to that is their main camera stopped working for that five minutes and they had to make do, otherwise it's just incompetence.
This looks like it would have been great fun to see live, but even filmed it's quite entertaining once you get past the inevitably tedious set-up scenes.
