Uncovered

Rating:
Summary: A fun, light whimsical jaunt
Review: I can't believe I bought this movie as an experiment and it turned out to be so good! This is Kate Beckinsale back in her early twenties. She's an art restorer who stumbles across a mystery in the past that rides in to her future.
There is much whimsy in this story. The characters almost seem like cartoons at first, but you soon find that this is their charm. The mystery is interesting and keeps you guessing. I thought I had the ending figured out, but I was happily wrong.
The other major component of the storyline is the majesty of Barcelona. Barcelona's beauty is gallant and yet subtle. The wonderful architecture will wow you, the simple but stylish city streets and the simple but romantic people give this film a rich texture that will no doubt make you want to make Spain your next vacation spot.
If this same film had been set in New York, it would have fallen dull. This could easily have fallen in to clique'. But instead it had a different adventure to give. The music is fun and transforms some of the more serious moments in to a blended feel of satisfaction. 'What you're doing is serious, but don't forget you're having fun.' Is the feeling I got from the score.

I really enjoyed this film. It is not a deep mystery nor a passionate love affair and the dialog isn't Shakespeare, but that being said, you can sit and relax with this story. Most of the people are likable and you'll feel like you're among friends. Give it a try. It's one of those forgotten art gems that we're privileged to now see many years later on DVD.

It's also neet to see how Kate had progressed in her career. I just wish she would stop smoking.

Rating:
Summary: Where is the Spanish Language Sound Track?
Review: Considering that this film is based on the novel by popular contemporary Spanish author Arturo Perez-Reverte entitled "La Tabla de Flandes" ("The Flemish Panel"), it defies reason that this DVD would appear without a Spanish language sound track (the more so because the action takes place entirely in Spain, and at least in the novel all the main characters are Spanish). Of the three films made from novels by this author, only one -- "El Maestro de Esgrima" ("The Fencing Master"), starring the gifted Spanish actress Asumpta Serna, is in Spanish, and it is by far the best of the three. The third Perez-Reverte novel to make it to the screen, "El Club Dumas", appeared as "The Ninth Gate" with Johnny Depp -- again, unfortunately, it also lacks a Spanish language sound track. All three novels are very good indeed, and the films are generally good as well. What is incomprehensible is why the decision was made to separate two of these movies from their natural audience -- the Spanish, and Spanish-speaking populations of other countries, who avidly read Arturo Perez-Reverte novels -- by failing to include a sound track in the Spanish language. Bad artistic decision, and bad marketing decision, but nonetheless an intriguing and worthwhile film. If you find the general idea of the film intriguing -- investigating the mysteries of art restoration, a possible murder centuries ago, and clues provided in a chess game -- you might want to go beyond a look at the film and read the book (in Spanish, if possible)!!!!

Rating:
Summary: A nice murder mystery
Review: I must agree with the first two reviews. This is an interesting little murder mystery with the fetching Ms. Beckinsale as an art restorer caught up in a centuries old murder mystery based on a painting. Only problem is, someone in the here and now is using that same painting to do some murders of their own.

It's a light and breezy kind of amateur sleuth flick. You could do a lot worse, and if you're a fan of Kate Beckinsale, you'll enjoy this film. Except perhaps for Kate's unshaved armpits (the film is set in Europe). And yes, there are some scenes of Kate "uncovered".

Rating:
Summary: Young Kate Beckinsale
Review: I won't go into the plot of the movie in any detail, since many previous reviews have already done that. This is not a well-known movie. However, please do not let that stop you from buying or renting it. This is a wonderful movie to watch. It just goes to show that a movie doesn't have to be a blockbuster at the box office to be good.

This is one of Kate Beckinsale's earlier films. It was a treat to watch her youthful charm and charisma at this stage in her career. She was simply adorable as Julia, a young lady who makes her living restoring works of art. And that short haircut simply looked sexy on her. Anyway, I have always considered her to be a good actress. And this is certainly a film to own for those who are fans of Kate Beckinsale. If you would like to see Kate's earlier films, I highly recommend both Haunted and Much Ado About Nothing.

The supporting casts include talented veterans such as Michael Gough, John Wood, Art Malik, and Sinead Cusack.

Rating:
Summary: Decent movie
Review: Just watched this movie on DVD. The main attraction of this movie is obviously the beautiful Kate Beckinsale. If you don't like Kate Beckinsale (hard to imagine) then this movie will be a drag. Otherwise, this movie is a decent enough movie with a plot and cast that will keep you interested. I am giving it three stars since I like both Kate Beckinsale and Art Malik.

Rating:
Summary: Mostly awesome.
Review: Kate Beckinsale. Need I say more?

The action keeps us captivated, too, but the choice of "bad guy" is unbelievable, and so is his murder plot. It makes sense only if you believe nobody knows the first thing about the people we spend our lives with.

Rating:
Summary: A Very Clever Under the Radar Murder Mystery...
Review: Released in 1994, Kate Beckinsale plays the main character in this convoluted murder mystery. She's living in Barcelona and has just graduated from College and is working at home restoring a painting that looks like it was created some time in the fifteenth century. She gets a knock at the door and a delivery man gives her an infrared overlay that she had taken of the entire painting and she looks at it closely and discovers that underneath a layer of paint there lies an inscription which mysteriously says in Latin "who took the knight?" Of course, looking at the painting which is of two noblemen playing a game of chess with a young woman sitting in the background, using that interpretation of the Latin inscription it looks like the painting is a playful scene where the younger man on the left has stolen the knight from the board and the older man is crouching over the board and in a crotchety way is saying "what happened to the knight?" while the younger man is making eyes at the young woman in the background. Kate's character takes the overlay to her friend, an art dealer to look at and interrupts her friend getting, ahem... serviced by the husband of the woman who is the neice of the man who owns the painting. Kate's character shows the overlay to her friend and convinces her friend to take her to see the owner of the painting to ask him if they can have it tested to see if that inscription underneath the layer of paint is an original one. They visit the owner and tell him about the inscription and the owner tells them that the inscription really should be translated as "who killed the knight?" instead of "who took the knight?" and from then on the entire meaning of the scene being played out in the painting takes a more ominous tone introducing the first murder victim in the story: a knight represented in the painting from five hundred years ago.

Based on the book "The Flanders Panel" by Arturo Perez-Reverte who wrote "The Club Dumas" which the movie "The Ninth Gate" was based on, it is no surprise that there are a myriad of nuances that are included inside this story that make references to or are based on the intricate artwork from the high Gothic period right before the Renaissance. The world in which the painting was supposedly made is a Machiavellian world of intrigue, doublecrossing, cutthroats and murder. After the commissioner of the painting realizes that his friend, the young man in the painting, has been killed and because of forces outside of his control he's not able to publically accuse the murderer, he asks the painter to alter the painting in such a way that it depicts who the murderer is, but in a secret code. The code of course is played out in miniature in the chess game the two men are playing and in it each piece represents different players in the plot and eventually by hiring a young man to play the game itself backwards Kate's character is able to figure out who actually did in the end kill the knight in the past. Pretty soon, pieces from a very fancy chess set start to pop up outside of her door and she soon finds herself in the middle of her own little murder mystery as people in her own life start to drop like flies mirroring both the pieces that pop up in front of her door and the pieces that are taken if the chess game in the painting were played out to its logical conclusion. The chess game itself is a microcosm of the intrigue that occurred back in the fifteenth century and of the intrigue that is going on in the present. By going backwards, the young man Kate's character hires is able to figure out what happened in the past and by going forwards with the game itself from where the painter left it off in the fifteenth century the young man is also able to predict who the likely candidates for murder are going to be in the near future. The plot itself mirrors the chess game to a tee to the amusement of the audience to the point where one ends up thinking about which characters in the movie are represented by which pieces in the game and also how would the drama of the chess game where one piece can viciously take hold of or slaughter another piece be played out in real life.

In my opinion, this is much better than the movies you'd see Kate Beckinsale play characters in today. From her choice of movie roles today compared to back when this movie was made one sort of has to wonder where her career priorities have turned to lie. If you disliked the blander, more commercialized and more static roles that she's played from more recently then you might not like this movie that much; but if enjoy a good thriller with a cleverly written thoroughly amusing plot then this is probably the movie for you!

Rating:
Summary: A Very Clever Under the Radar Murder Mystery...
Review: Released in 1994, Kate Beckinsale plays the main character in this convoluted murder mystery. She's living in Barcelona and has just graduated from College and is working at home restoring a painting that looks like it was created some time in the fifteenth century. She gets a knock at the door and a delivery man gives her an infrared overlay that she had taken of the entire painting and she looks at it closely and discovers that underneath a layer of paint there lies an inscription which mysteriously says in Latin "who took the knight?" Of course, looking at the painting which is of two noblemen playing a game of chess with a young woman sitting in the background, using that interpretation of the Latin inscription it looks like the painting is a playful scene where the younger man on the left has stolen the knight from the board and the older man is crouching over the board and in a crotchety way is saying "what happened to the knight?" while the younger man is making eyes at the young woman in the background. Kate's character takes the overlay to her friend, an art dealer to look at and interrupts her friend getting, ahem... serviced by the husband of the woman who is the neice of the man who owns the painting. Kate's character shows the overlay to her friend and convinces her friend to take her to see the owner of the painting to ask him if they can have it tested to see if that inscription underneath the layer of paint is an original one. They visit the owner and tell him about the inscription and the owner tells them that the inscription really should be translated as "who killed the knight?" instead of "who took the knight?" and from then on the entire meaning of the scene being played out in the painting takes a more ominous tone introducing the first murder victim in the story: a knight represented in the painting from five hundred years ago.

Based on a book by the same man who wrote the book that the movie "The 9 Gates" is based on, it is no surprise that there are a myriad of nuances that are included inside this story that make references to or are based on the intricate artwork from the high Gothic period right before the Renaissance. The world in which the painting was supposedly made is a Machiavellian world of intrigue, doublecrossing, cutthroats and murder. After the commissioner of the painting realizes that his friend, the young man in the painting, has been killed and because of forces outside of his control he's not able to publically accuse the murderer, he asks the painter to alter the painting in such a way that it depicts who the murderer is, but in a secret code. The code of course is played out in miniature in the chess game the two men are playing and in it each piece represents different players in the plot and eventually by hiring a young man to play the game itself backwards Kate's character is able to figure out who actually did in the end kill the knight in the past. Pretty soon, pieces from a very fancy chess set start to pop up outside of her door and she soon finds herself in the middle of her own little murder mystery as people in her own life start to drop like flies mirroring both the pieces that pop up in front of her door and the pieces that are taken if the chess game in the painting were played out to its logical conclusion. The chess game itself is a microcosm of the intrigue that occurred back in the fifteenth century and of the intrigue that is going on in the present. By going backwards, the young man Kate's character hires is able to figure out what happened in the past and by going forwards with the game itself from where the painter left it off in the fifteenth century the young man is also able to predict who the likely candidates for murder are going to be in the near future. The plot itself mirrors the chess game to a tee to the amusement of the audience to the point where one ends up thinking about which characters in the movie are represented by which pieces in the game and also how would the drama of the chess game where one piece can viciously take hold of or slaughter another piece be played out in real life.

In my opinion, this is much better than the movies you'd see Kate Beckinsale play characters in today. From her choice of movie roles today compared to back when this movie was made one sort of has to wonder where her career priorities have turned to lie. If you disliked the blander, more commercialized and more static roles that she's played from more recently then you might not like this movie that much; but if enjoy a good thriller with a cleverly written thoroughly amusing plot then this is probably the movie for you!

Rating:
Summary: A decent mystery and a star "uncovered"
Review: So far as I can tell, this little-known British/Spanish production had never been shown or otherwise made available in the United States prior to the release of this DVD. I first saw it on an imported videotape with Portugese subtitles. More than likely, it is being released in the U.S. now to capitalize on Kate Beckinsale's increasingly high profile. Its most noteworthy feature is the appearance of its comely star nude in no less than three scenes, her only such exposure to date.

Viewers whose main interest is seeing Ms. Beckinsale "uncovered" will not be disappointed. However, the movie itself is not so bad either. Although a little rough by Hollywood standards, it offers a decent murder mystery with an interesting twist. Beckinsale plays Julia, a rising star in the world of art restoration. An aristocratic family commissions her to work on a Renaissance painting that has been in their possession for over 500 years. It depicts two men playing chess while a woman watches in the background. Julia quickly discovers that the painting has been altered and contains clues to the murder of one of the chess players. As soon as Julia grows curious about this 500 year-old crime, someone begins killing people close to her. She can only conclude that solving the ancient mystery will provide the key to her present-day horrors.

While Julia continues to coax hidden details from the painting, she enlists the aid of a truly unique character. She hires Domenec (Paudge Behan), a sort of "chess bum," to work out the details of the game in the painting -- the moves that brought the pieces to where they are and the likely outcome of the game. The bohemian Domenick makes his living hustling high-stakes chess games (huh?). His surfer-with-a-brain appearance and lifestyle provide both a foil and an eventual romantic allure for the uptight Julia. From there, it becomes a race between this unlikely duo and the killer. They must solve the mystery before more people, including Julia herself, are murdered.

Rating:
Summary: Not at all good
Review: The motivations of the characters were all over the place.
Perhaps it's a "Spanish thing", but the male characters in
particular are boorish and whiney in an instant - it's
all...."I'll get you, you b***ch" one minute and then all lovey
dovey with the same female character in the next scene - as if
nothing dramatic had happened - you know, like attempted rape
for instance.

It's a sad day to see a great actress like Sinead Cussack having
to utter the, "You need to get laid" line and use the f-word a
lot. Very sad indeed.

Also, the "plot"? Oh dear. Obvious is too obvious a word to use.

And as for the "selling point" of the DVD, the lovely Ms
Beckinsale is a way more attractive and interesting in the
recently released "Underworld" - here she just looks too young
for the part. I'm reminded of the song "Jailbait" by Motorhead.

All in all, I'd say.....avoid this one.