eschetic-2 Taking the concept of a "love potion" (the elixir which, painted on the eyes of a sleeper, will cause the "victim" to become enamored with the first he or she sees on awakening) from Shakespeare's MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM (being done in a high school production at the behest of a strangely "arty" teacher), but eschewing all the other substance of the play, WERE ALL THE WORLD MINE is a semi-musical whose healthy but overly optimistic premise is that bigotry will not survive experiencing the object of the bigotry first hand. It is only a semi-musical although it would seem to like to be more. Nearly all Shakespeare's plays had music in them, but seldom more than the two or three passing songs that the play-within-a-play in WERE THE WORLD... indulges in, and more to the pity, none of these are set to the Bard's lyrics. While somewhat shaky in construction, the cast and physical production of WERE THE WORLD... make it a mild pleasure, but it would be far *more* pleasurable had the author/director incorporated more of Shakespeare and less of well meaning contemporary farce.

Roedy Green Our hero recreates the love potion from Midsummer Night's Dream. By amazing co-incidence, the first person each of his victim's sees after having the potion squirted in his eyes is of the same sex and age, and they fall passionately in love.These newly created gays do not behave like ordinary gays. They have no fear of being open about their sexuality. The cannot understand when their love is not reciprocated. They are as persistent as horny dogs. They don't give up and try someone else. They are also manic blissed out of their minds.The movie improperly conflates being gay with being a drag queen, plastering on makeup like Adam Lambert, and prancing about doing ballet steps like Ulyana Lopatkina. Nobody actually has sex, though they do kiss.The action takes place in an all-boys school. The actors are all hunky, good dancers, good athletes and good singers. There is quite a bit of music and singing. I wish there were even more. It is haunting and beautiful.It has a bitter-sweet ending as everyone returns to normal, with a heart- warming twist.Every young gay male flipped for some resolutely heterosexual male and had to watch from a distance as the girls pawed over him, feeling totally left out. This movie is the fantasy cure. Warning: much of the movie does not make any sense.

Marcus Lee I'm all about Shakespeare. Have been since forever. So when my friend told me about this slightly skewed adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream, I was all for it. Fairies, lover's quarrels, Puck just in general screwing things up? It's basically and old fashioned Rom Com. Long story short, the main character finds a recipe for this magic love flower from the actual play, somehow makes it, and then uses it as a revenge tool for a town that has bullied him for being gay for forever (incidentally, or maybe on purpose, literally every relationship he makes with this magic lover flower ends up gay). Once you get passed that suspension of disbelief, concept wise I loved it. The idea of taking that one element of the original story and bringing it into the real world is amazing, and I find the havoc he wreaks with it more than amusing. The movie incorporated original lines of the play in too, while at the same time not over flooding the play with these sections or making areas hard to follow or difficult to understand. My problem with this movie? It's a musical. That alone isn't so bad, until you see the execution of it in the film. Some scenes are beautiful. When he sings in order to make the flower, it seems like a magical spell is cast over the whole film. But a lot of the singing sections are awkward. There's no real transition or reason to be singing, but suddenly we go from being alone, in an auditorium, auditioning, to weird ballet rugby players that some from nowhere and this overly dramatic lighting, meanwhile the main character went from simple school uniform to fairy wings, silver shorts, and elaborate eye makeup in two seconds flat with no real connecting context. Don't get me wrong, I think the plot of this movie is fair. While I'm not too fond of yet another gay bullying narrative, his accidental turned purposeful revenge plan is amusing. Not to mention anything involving Shakespeare automatically gets a thumbs up from me, especially modern adaptations or ones that re-envision a classic plot in a new way, as this did. As a ridiculous film, one to smile and laugh at this is a good choice. It's one of those films that originally was meant to be serious, but while watching it there's no way anyone could keep a straight face. But if you're intending to watch a serious or more realistic film, this is not it. There are too many ridiculous dance numbers and odd transitions for that.

rgcustomer I was looking forward to this film, and I did ultimately enjoy it (and the actors in it... yum) but it let me down.One nitpick I had was one of the key lines in the trailer: "if you could make anyone love you, would you?". It wasn't delivered properly, nearly burying the "would you" words, which should have had the emphasis.I think the film went too far in suggesting the entire town could be turned gay. Who is this guy, Santa Claus? Nobody has that much time, not to mention flower-aiming accuracy.I would have: * not made it based on Shakespeare, particularly texts that I do not believe actually exist in Shakespeare... (do they?) * eliminated the manic drama teacher ... she was just creepy and unnecessary * delved more into the personalities of the other students. I'm certain we don't even learn most of their names, regardless of what the credits say. * followed up with the true gay love, once acknowledged. The viewers have earned this. Dammit, when are we going to get a good gay romance film (in any genre)? * pushed the envelope a bit. Guys are guys, and whether they are gay, or potion-gay, some aren't going to be making lovey-dovey eyes at each other for very long before moving on to the first few bases, if not home plate. * gone full musical. This was a film with music, but not a musical. It could have been...I think I still prefer Get Real or Beautiful Thing.Anyway, still a 7/10 is not a bad score, and I do recommend this film. But it does continue a trend of excellent gay shorts turning into merely average-to-good gay films (Dare being another recent example).