Who's In It?

Nicolas Cage is Captain Antonio Corelli, Penelope Cruz as Pelagia, John Hurt is Dr. Iannis, and Christian Bale as Mandras.  

Who Made It?

John Madden

Where's The Web site?
Captain Corelli's Mandolin

What's It About?

It's World War II and the Italians are occupying Greece.  Mandras (Bale) and Pelagia (Cruz) have a love that is just starting to bloom.  In fact they are so in love they are hoping to get married.  The war, however, gets in the way and Mandras and Pelagia promise themselves to one another just before Mandras leaves to defend the country he loves so much against the Italians and Germans.  He leaves behind the one person he absolutely adores to fight for the country he loves so much.

While he is away, the Italians occupy the island and a Captain gets bunked in with Pelagia and her father (Hurt).  That person is Captain Antonio Corelli (Cage).  Coreli's arrangements are made for him, and he becomes a part of the family, all the while enamored with the vibrant Pelagia.  But Pelagia just sees everything that she hates in the Italian Captain.  She sees a man who is of a high level of importance and has helped to take over the Island she loves, and drive her man deep underground.  But will things stay that way for long?  Or will the war do strange things as it tends to do?  Captain Corelli plays a mandolin and is out to steel Pelagia's heart, can all the turmoil going on during World War II see forbidden love bloom?  You'll have to listen to the music that come from Captain Corelli's Mandolin plays for the answers to this. 

Common Guy's Thoughts

Captain Corelli's Mandolin reminds me in a lot of ways of the film Pearl Harbor that was released earlier in 2001.  There is a love triangle between Corelli, Pelagia, and Mandras.  The setting is on a beautiful island during World War II.  War is wreaking havoc on the film and its characters.  Yes, the films are similar in so many ways.  And I just felt that this film was also not nearly as good as it could have been.

The first half of the film gives us a heavy dose of the romantic side of things as the Italians invade and Corelli moves in.  In fact it plays up the courting so highly that you almost forget that there is a war going on and these people are in occupied territory.  Instead we are treated to a, does she like him or hate him run through the early part of the Corelli/Pelagia relationship.  Ah, but sooner or later there has to be some war sequences in this film and that happens once the Germans take control of the island, and then it is off to some war scenes.

Once the fact that the war starts interrupting the Italian vacation on the island, things start getting interesting and I started to perk up and enjoy the film myself.  I really was starting to lose it during the extremely slow beginning to the film and I was hoping it would get better.  It did and I started to enjoy the film a bit more.

So what about the acting?  For me that was one of the things that ruined things a bit.  Cage's accent went in and out on a number of occasions and it became increasingly annoying.  Everybody here delivers a quite serviceable performance, there was just nothing outstanding to get me past the first half of this movie.  I like Nicolas Cage in a number of things, but this role just didn't seem right for him.

This film has a lot of potential, but for me it just wasn't there.  I had hoped for so much more, but the first half of the film dragged down the rest of it so much that it just couldn't recover.  I just wish it would have dealt with the fact that there was a war going on from start to finish instead of as a "throw-in" at the end.  I hoped for a masterpiece but instead Captain Corelli's Mandolin produces a sour note or two.

Grade

C+

Parents Guide

Rated R for some violence, sexuality and language.  The first line in any of these parents' guides is what the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) says about the movie.  There is a couple of other things that are in this movie.  There is one scene in the film that includes a couple of shots of fully topless women.  The scene is on a beach and lasts for only a couple of minutes but parents should know going in that there is nudity in the film.  There is a lot of war violence, and some disturbing images that come on the screen in the film.  The language truly isn't that bad but some of the other aspects of the film may be questionable for kids.
 

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