Such a frustrating disappointment

Fresh and Exciting

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

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.

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.

This is one of the worst '70s "war" movies i have ever seen in my life and possibly the worst ensemble of bad performances in one movie. Elliot Gould narrowly snatches the title of worst actor from Roger Moore but to be honest every actor in this movie is in with a good shout! George P. Cosmatos is an horrendous hack of director who later went on to follow up the rather quite good "First Blood" with one of the worst sequels in movie history "Rambo: First Blood Part II". The screenplay is bloated and uneventful with so much padding just to fill a 2 hour running time which was almost essential for these type of films in the day. If your undecided as to whether to watch this movie for the first time let me decide for you? DON'T WATCH IT!!!!!!!!

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!