FeistyUpper If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

disinterested_spectator Regarding the Axis powers of WWII, we have always been willing to cut the Italians a big old break. The Japanese pulled a sneak attack on us at Pearl Harbor, and the Germans were responsible for the holocaust, but we like to think that the Italians were basically good people who just got carried away by Mussolini's speeches. And so, an actual incident during the war, when the Italians teamed up with the Greeks to fight against their former allies, the Germans, fits right in with our disposition to grant the Italians favorable treatment.In the movie, the Italian soldiers that occupy a Greek island have not seen any real action, but that is not surprising, because I have never seen an Italian soldier kill an American in a World War II movie. Moreover, they don't seem to care about the war. They just want to sing opera. Isn't that nice? The Greeks also seem to like the Italians better. Nobody seems to have a problem with the fact that Palagia is obviously in love with an Italian officer, Captain Corelli, and even has sex with him; but another girl, who just gives a German officer a friendly kiss on the cheek, is hanged by the Greeks for being a traitor.Reality or no reality, the decision by the Italians to fight with the Greeks against the Germans rather than simply handing over their arms when Mussolini surrenders turns out to be a big mistake, because except for Corelli, they are all slaughtered by the Germans for being traitors. But then, that only makes us like the Italians even more.

Andreja Zecevic I have just returned from Kefalonia. That's the only reason for marking this movie with "3". I like the Island...I simply have no idea what's wrong with John Madden. On the paper, the guy seems to know what he's doing. Seems to be able to differ good from bad (if we take that there is no right and wrong). But after letting myself finish this movie (since I seem to be a masochist when it comes to finishing everything I am watching) I have got the impression that this fellow had been directing this in a complete emotional chaos because I can not believe that his fellow citizen Louis de Bernières had anything close to this idea. Love story?! Goddammit no! Let's start with the casting. Nicolas Cage?! Let's see, his character is a profligate Italian occupier fighting along with the Nazis under Mussolini and seducing a wive of an honest Greek patriot who goes to war to prevent his home Island being occupied...On the scale of charm from 1 to 10, that actor must have been something like 15 to even having any chance to make his character acceptably nice so one could even finish watching the movie! There were only two movies in the entire career of Nicolas Cage when he reached above 5 on such scale and where he has been able to transfer some kind of emotion through his character: Leaving Las Vegas and Face Off. However, considering that something above 5 is way below required 15, I have a feeling like I have been raped after watching this movie to the end.OK, I understand. The history of art deals with probably the greatest anguish of mankind - the unpredictable ways of love. But after she (Pelagia - Penelope) was able to deceive and leave her handsome, honest, simple-minded patriot Mandras played by Bale (probably the only one partially rising to the occasion along with Penelope here) for the (above described) Cage, I believe the only honest feeling one could actually gain would be to support the angry Kefalonian inhabitants by marking her with βρώμικο πουτάνα - sporca puttana (for the ones still liking the Italian lover :) No really, even John Waters' Pink Flamingos love does not seem so repulsive anymore.OK, I could be moving on with this, but I believe I have made my point clear enough.

Petar Kurschner Photography I give it a 2, because of the beautiful Mediterranean Greece, otherwise it would be 1. When Nicholas Cage came into with his first lines, I thought he was just kidding. Cage as an Italian ?? I'm sorry, but very wrong actor who's acting is also BAD, not to mention his Italiano accent. The story is very loose, it might have been good, but with other actors and obviously with other screenplay. The camera is great, photography also but why the hell did you cast Nicholas Cage and Penelope Cruz for the role. Please don't get me wrong, I don't have anything against Cage, he has some really great movies, but he obviously isn't for every role. It's really a pity that the cast wasn't better set, because the story has potential.

ianlouisiana "Kefalonia,Greece,1940".We know that because it's just been on the screen.In case we think it's Kefalonia,Mississippi,presumably.Then to make sure we are on message a Greek dance starts up.To allay any lingering doubts,another ten minutes into screen time and there's another Greek dance.OK,thank you,we got it the first time. Unfortunately all this desire to impose ethnicity is thwarted by the appearance of the very English Mr John Hurt as the wise doctor/philosopher Iannis and the very Spanish Miss Penelope Cruz as his daughter Pelagia. Mr Hurt has a grey walrus moustache and disconcertingly black hair. He doesn't speak so much as spout wise doctor/philosopher stuff so you just know he is really really wise and really really loves his daughter in a wise fatherly way.She becomes engaged to Mandras a simple fisherman after he throws her into the sea.Then war comes and her simple fisherman goes off to fight the Hun.Irrepressible child of nature that she is,Pelagia skips gaily along the footpaths surrounding her village.The island is invaded by the Italian army with only one thing on their minds singing extracts from Puccini and playing various stringed instruments. Well there is one other thing on their minds as exemplified by that dratted handsome Capt Corelli when we first see him looking in his dress uniform as if he would be happier piloting Thunderbird 3.On spotting Pelagia in the crowd as they march through town to accept the surrrender he orders his men to salute "Bella bambina at 2 'o clock" thus identifying himself as a dog and a sexist at once.A stereotypical Italian then. Mr Nicholas Cage plays Capt Corelli in a way that clearly pleases him. He and child of nature fall in love which Miss Cruz valiantly tries to depict,her brow furrowing with effort from time to time.Wise doctor/philosopher Iannis thinks no good will come of it.The Italians surrender as soon as is decently possible leaving the dour humourless Germans to fight alone with entirely foreseeable results. Not to be confused in any way with the well - received novel of the same title,"Captain Corelli's Mandolin" sets cliché upon cliché and devil take the hindmost.It tries for the sweep of a David Lean but lacks the absolute control of his subject that categorised his work. Should American viewers wonder why Europe is still so bedevilled a continent then they can rest assured that the Greeks still hate the Germans,the Germans hate the Italians and the English hate everybody. Peace - to Europeans - is merely a continuation of war by other means.