William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream

Lavish and star-studded, Michael Hoffman's version of Shakespeare's fairy-dusted game of romantic round robin is a thoroughly respectable affair: Your high school English teacher would approve, and parts are terrifically enjoyable. The story, about the tangled amours of a gaggle of pretty young things, could keep a soap opera in plot twists for weeks. Hermia (Anna Friel) and Lysander (Dominic West) are desperately in love, but her father wants her to marry Demetrius (Christian Bale). Meanwhile, Hermia's friend Helena (Calista Flockhart) adores Demetrius, who rejects her cruelly. The four of them unwisely repair to the woods, where fairy monarchs Oberon (Rupert Ever...