Mandolin Hero on tour !! (Captain Corelli's Mandolin (DVD))

Member Name: martyfarty69

Product:	Captain Corelli's Mandolin (DVD)
Date:	16/02/09 (52 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Penelope Cruz.....um nicely shot

Disadvantages: Nicolas Cage has no business playing an italian, very depressing

Having never read the book or indeed had any interest in the story it was with great "anticipation" that I settled down with my wife on Saturday evening to watch this movie ( it was her choice !! )

To say this is a : Chick Flick" would be a bit of an injustice, as my wife really didn't enjoy it much the same as I didn't enjoy it, but more on that later.

The movie starts in World War two wartime greece, specifically on the idyllic island of Cephallonia, at the beginning the island is largely unaffected by the outbreak of war but as time goes on that changes, the movies main female lead is Pelagia ( Penelope Cruz ) who finds herself betrothed to the immature Mandras ( Christian Bale ), Mandras finds himself going to war to help the Greek army fight the Italians, while he's away Pelagia is worried as over time she doesn't hear back from him and fears the worst, in the meantime Cephallonia is dragged into the war as we find legions of Italian soldiers occupying the island, one such solder is Captain Antonio Corelli ( Nicolas Cage ) who is a very jovial good hearted soldier with a passion for singing and playing the Mandolin, at first the village despise the soldiers including Corelli, but over time that changes and indeed Pelagia finds herself falling in love with Corelli.

I won't get into the story too much more , the story is good enough ( although I believe its main problem is it deviates from the original book quite heavily ) and some of the acting is strong, particularly from the always impressive John Hurt who plays Pelagia's father Dr Iannis, but I think some of the casting choices were poor, in particular Nicolas Cage who at no time during the movie do I believe him to be an Italian, his accent is terrible and I honestly think he should have just played it with his own accent a'la Kevin Costner in Robin Hood Prince of Theives.

The movie runs too long, has moments of poor scriptwriting and its only saving grace is its beautifully shot with a nice instrumental score and of course Penelope Cruz is beautiful and worth watching the movie for alone, but thats really a poor reason to watch it.

Do yourself a favour, there are far more well written, well acted period drama's, leave this for an afternoon when its on the TV and there's nothing else on.

Summary: Quite poor and runs far too long