Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.

Crwthod A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

Brainsbell The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

Cheryl A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

jubilee77 If one asked why does the press and critics hate "this movie" and they would have loads of different answers on whether it has a rather poor plot and its either silly or overdone and this World War II adventure titled Escape to Athena is no exception being among the worst films to be premiered during 1979 and there is every possibility that this movie almost looked a bit like a remake of The Guns of Navarone classic due to similarity of filming locations supposing centred around the Mediterranean. Even so, the casting of Roger Moore, Telly Savalas and David Niven plus many more clearly seemed to be totally wasted in this utterly inept movie where they seem to be enjoying the roles they should never have played until they realise it when this one crashed in the Box Office and by look of it, has World War II crept into the computerised security era of 1979 some 34 years after it supposed to have ended? At the same time as well as starring as James Bond in Moonraker, Roger Moore had also filmed another failure movie, this one being North Sea Hyjack. Either Moore didn't take film roles seriously enough and can't act or was he typecast as Simon Templar or James Bond and seemed to parachute helplessly into unsuccessful films.

dkrathbun Despite the interesting cast (Elliot Gould! David Niven! Roger Moore as a German! Sonny Bono!) and the truly amazing scenery on the island of Rhodes, I have to disagree with other posters on this site who have given this film even a modestly positive rating. This has to be one of the worst war films ever.If you've ever seen Kelly's Heroes (1970), you may remember Donald Sutherland's character Oddball, who spoke in a late-60s, early-70s hippy-dippy patois, calling things "groovy" and "out-a-sight" and so on. This kind of anachronistic speech spoils large sections of Escape to Athena. I wonder how old the script was at the time it was made... When Gould's character says to Moore's that he will have the "grooviest camp around," I had to check the release date (NINE years after Kelly's Heroes).***SPOILERS AHEAD*** Near the end of the film, when the true objective of the Greek resistance becomes clear (a V-2 type rocket installation), the Germans roll out one of their weapons, trailed by a company of men in (anachronistic) mirrored-visor helmets. I presume that buying the helmets was cheaper than hiring more extras, since they allowed any actor, even one that had appeared earlier, who had been shot or blown up, to reappear in a jumpsuit and helmet and...march...slowly... in lockstep....behind...a rocket...without performing any function whatsoever! It's laughable! I though I had suddenly fallen through a filmic wormhole into a bad James Bond imitation.A complete waste of time.

dwild1 A stupid yet smug, Aren't We Hip Now? late 70's look at WWII and WWII movies. Savales tried to act serious some of the time; but most couldn't be bothered.Most of the characters were pretty annoying- probably Elliott Gould's "comedian" most of all. (Actually, I found Roger Moore was one of the more palatable ones here, bad German accent and all).But Director Cosamatos obviously loved Gould's a**. Literally. In fact Cosamatos was obviously an @ss-man- we get countless shots of 'em, especially Gould's fat tush. Make it a drinking game if you are ever forced to watch this.

intelearts Absolutely dreadful 70s mish mash of comedy and action - all overacted and under directed. This really has lazy written all over it - dialed-in performances and everything is done in a way that belittles everyone involved.The plot of a misfit gaggle of POWs on a Greek island with a benevolent German commandant (Roger Moore) who decide to rob a Monastery sounds good but the reality is just awful, and horribly banal.The whole film is not helped by occasional forays into a harder colder sadistic SS company who arbitrarily hang and shoot the Greek citizenry, and Telly Savalas as an ex-monk with too much testosterone is no better.Have to be honest and say this is probably my least favourite war film of all time - it just jars at every stage - even the great David Niven - who could make any line seem natural - seems totally bemused by the awfulness of the effort here. Maybe he did it out of paternal love for his son who co-produced this fiasco.I firmly believe this film was one of the main reasons Hollywood stopped making WWII films and started making Vietnam films, and on the evidence here who can blame them? Fantastic cast, awful, awful, awful film - not even worth watching on a cold, wet Autumn Saturday - honestly...Look and feels like an amateur holiday video... good luck enjoying this one!