one of my absolute favorites!

Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

"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.

Okay, I finally just got through the whole thing. I wanted to see this movie because I knew it had musical connotations and was about being in love with Penelope Cruz. Which isn't hard to do.When there is a good script and good story you would think that "top" actors like Nic Cage and Christian Bale would seriously buff up on their local talk. If you are going to do a foreign movie in English with an accent of the local language then you got some serious work to do. Nic apparently didn't do enough training for his accent. He goes from one sentence saying something like: hey man, surfs up dude!, to aye mama mia, no hay pizzaria. If you pay attention to his accent it is all over the place.If you watch an A actor like Leo Dicaprio, he will seriously study the local vernacular and slang and bring it into his character and make the audience believe it. Look at his accents in Blood Diamond or Gangs of New York. He nails it. These two guys Nic and Christian completely blow it. It gets better towards the end of the film but come on guys, do your homework. Jeezus, it is so distracting and hard to get into a movie where the characters have clearly not done their homework.My overall feeling about this movie is very conflicted. I loved the story and loved the classical guitar piece that Nics' character recorded but, the accent thing I obviously cannot ignore. They should have done this movie with real Italians, Spaniards, and Germans and kept it real, or otherwise brought in an actor that does his homework like Leo Dicaprio. So there.. That is what I think, take it or leave it....

"Captain Corelli's Mandolin" confuses more often than entertains. Although I haven't read Louis de Bernieres's World War II-era bestseller, I know enough about the changes to recognize the shortcomings of director John Madden's leaden movie adaptation. Audiences may remember this English director best for his 1999 Oscar-winning comedy "Shakespeare in Love." Personally, I enjoyed Madden's earlier effort "Mrs. Brown" (1997), starring Judi Dench as Queen Victoria. Nevertheless, if good looks guaranteed great cinema, "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" would qualify as spectacular. Lensed on location in scenic Greece by two-time Oscar-winning cinematographer John ("Braveheart") Toll, this ambitious but abominable Nicholas Cage & Penelope Cruz wartime tearjerker is easier on the eyes than the ears. Aside from establishing a concrete sense of setting and atmosphere, Madden and scenarist Shawn ("A World Apart") Slovo have butchered Bernieres's novel so that it emerges in bites and incomprehensible pieces. Incredibly, Madden and Slovo let the action veer erratically between comedy and tragedy with an indifferent romance at the heart handicapped by a curious lack of chemistry. Complaints about miscasting may arise in the minds of some moviegoers. Nicholas Cage's insufferably sweet, Puccini-loving, mandolin-strumming Italian artillery captain is almost enough to give Fascism a good name. Meanwhile, nothing good comes of Cage's ersatz Chico Marx accent. Actually, Sylvester Stallone would have been convincing in this role. If poor dialects irritate you, prepare for a veritable cacophony. English supporting actor John Hurt, Iberian beauty Penelope Cruz, and Welsh leading man/villain Christian Bale all sound and look out-of-place alongside Greek native Irene Papas. Purists will most likely skip this Zorba the Greek meets "The English Patient," not only for its inconsistent babble of accents but also for its mishmash of historical revisionism, not to mention its pallid plot."Captain Corelli's Mandolin" unfolds on the idyllic Greek isle of Cephallonia in 1940. A wise old local physician, Dr. Iannis (John Hurt of "Alien"), who has been compiling a history of the island and its earthquakes, narrates this yarn. He lives outside the village with his grown-up, headstrong daughter Pelagia (Penelope Cruz of "Blow") in a small mountainside home. A brawny fisherman called Mandras (Christian Bale of "Shaft") wins Pelagia's heart with his rough and tough ways. Her crusty old mustached father warns her from the start: "I would expect you to marry a foreigner." According to him, Greek men dominate their wives, and Mandras is "not her equal." When Mussolini invades Albania, Mandras and she get engaged. He ships out to fight the Italians. Pelagia pens dozens of letters, but Mandras never sends a reply. Later, we learn about Mandras's illiteracy. Perhaps Pelagia's father knows best. Anyway, this revelation smells like a plot contrivance. How could a bright, well-educated girl like Pelagia overlook such an obvious fact? She serves as her father's nurse and aspires to be a doctor herself. Doctors are trained to observe, so Pelagia should have known. Furthermore, neither Mandras nor Pelagia appear as if they were made for each other. One flirtatious splash in the Mediterranean doesn't a romance make. Madden doesn't pump up the passion between these two. Sadly, Bale and Cruz make an unpersuasive couple. Meanwhile, Madden has given audiences the village tour and introduced its citizenry. Dr. Iannis wields a fishhook to extract a dried pea from a man's ear canal. Although his hearing has been restored miraculously, the husband dreads a future where he must endure his wife's constant complaints. This joke serves as a bookend of sorts that opens and concludes the film. Suddenly, the skies erupt with military aircraft and parachutes blossom. Mussolini's Fascist troops have come to occupy Cephallonia and ships pour in more men and equipment.When Captain Antonio Corelli (Nicholas Cage of "The Family Man") lays eyes on Pelagia, her beauty overwhelms him. "Bella bambina!" He exclaims and orders his platoon to glance in her direction. Initially, true to the romance formula, Pelagia wants nothing to do with Corelli. She regards the Italians with fear and loathing. Corelli is not only an artillery captain but also serves as a translator. The scene in the town square when the Greeks refuse to surrender to the Italians, preferring instead the Nazis, deserves a lusty laugh. Later, the Italians decide to billet their officer elsewhere. The Italian Army quartermaster makes arrangements with Dr. Iannis to board Corelli. Pelagia hates these arrangements, until the captain captivates her with his mandolin.Gradually, Pelagia's glacial attitude melts, and she falls in love with Corelli, even after her betrothed returns to the island and joins the Greek partisans. Mandras's mother Drosoula (Irene Papas of TV's "Homer's Odyssey") is not happy about this new arrangement. The Cage & Cruz romance kindles few sparks. A more meaningful but tragic romance occurs between a so-called good Nazi officer, Captain Gunter Weber (David Morrissey of "Hilary and Jackie") and another island girl. Although Madden shows the Italians firing their artillery, this bunch of guys heads to the beach to guzzle wine and warble Verdi operas to their prostitutes. At first, everything seems great when our protagonists learn that Mussolini has surrendered and the war is over for them. "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" has focused primarily on comedy until the Nazis come goose stomping into the action, and everything turns tragic. Sadly, Madden botches both assignments. He cannot stage a decent big battlefield scene, and he fares no better with the intimate romance scenes. If you're looking for a better version of "Captain Corelli's Mandolin," then check out Gabriele Salvatores's "Mediterraneo" (1991) which won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film. World War II buffs will appreciate the genuine-looking Stuka dive-bombers that rain destruction on Cephallonia. The lack of romantic chemistry, a hopelessly muddled plot, and leaden direction sabotages "Captain Corelli's Mandolin,"and it fade outs on a whimper rather than a bang of jubilation.

When I first saw the trailer for this movie, I was under the impression that Nicolas Cage's character was an American soldier, and that Penelope Cruz was the Italian. This was thought because of Cage's horrific attempt at an Italian accent with the line "Bella bambina at 12 o'clock" (or something like that). I assumed he was trying to fake an accent to be silly as he was marching around what I thought was Italy. The accents were horrible, and as always, Penelope Cruz sounds like a squeaky chihuahua trying to squeeze out her lines. And lets not forget about Christian Bales accent, wow, sounded like he was trying to speak through a ball of cotton stuffed in his mouth. And if the accents weren't bad enough, during the love scene between Cage and Cruz, you get a glimpse of pit hair from not Cage, but Cruz! Maybe that was the norm for women in Greece back then, but that's not what just doesn't fly in a love scene these days. Put this DVD back on the shelf at the video store and walk right past, you can't get the wasted 2 hours of your life back.