Rating: 
Summary: Beautiful Story, Music, and Scenery--A Triple Treat Movie
Review: Captain Antonio Corelli (Nicolas Cage) epitomizes the best qualities of Italian men---in love with life, women, and music. His arrival on a small Greek island and falling in love at first sight with Pelagia (Penelope Cruz) is a beautiful love story with World War II's bloody battles as a backdrop. Cage performs superbly as the invader who makes friends with the enemy and is later startled by the ruthlessness of his German allies. Penelope Cruz is also outstanding as the highly-educated daughter of the village doctor (John Hurt) who is engaged to her intellectual inferior Mandras (Christian Bale.) The passion between Corelli and Pelagia is fraught with tension that erupts in a beautifully-directed love scene. Despite the great love story, it is perhaps the character of Mandras who is most compelling as his feelings for Pelagia are revealed and his actions toward Corelli round out his mysterious nature. I have never read the book, but would love to do so now in order to see a fuller development of the intriguing Mandras. Also notable among a cast of fine performances are those of Irene Pappas as the spirited mother of Mandras who realizes what is happening between Pelagia and Corelli, as well as David Morrissey as the German captain who battles personal feelings with his unquestionable support for Hitler. The music and singing in this movie is excellent. To borrow one of my favorite lines from the movie: Heil, Hitler, Heil Puccini! Listening to the Italian soldiers singing "Santa Lucia" and other great works from the Italian masters was alone worth the cost of admission. Add Corelli's beautiful playing of his mandolin and the idyllic setting of the Greek island of Cephalonia and you have a movie I highly recommend seeing.
Rating: 
Summary: A Must For Romance Die-Hard Fan
Review: I profess that I haven't read the novel yet but my friends who did, they huffed & puffed, clucked their tongues, sat uncomfortably thru the movie because they were frustrated that many facets of the novel failed to reach the silver screen. As Tom Woolfe put succinctly, it's a long way yet before a movie would take the place of a good novel because the movie is simply unable to convey fully the complexity of thoughts & emotions that ran thru the characters at that point in time. Rather, the movie would only potray the characters in a two dimensional form. That's probably what happened here. Needless to say, they brought to me various points which readers might agree upon, but I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, got a lump in my throat & tried not to cry. My friends complained that they would opt the characters speaking in their native languages rather than having Americans (perhaps) speaking broken English with accents. They wouldn't mind reading the subtitles, that's what they implied. For goodness sake, we are going to movies for entertainment purpose rather than for linguistic research program & how absurd it is to judge the merit of a movie by criticising that English is used! Why don't we just let the actors & actresees do their jobs & I think that they carried out their jobs magnificently, dealing with the matter of the heart in the best way they could. For those that commented that Nicholas Cage was miscasted as Captain Corelli, I begged to differ. His chemistry with Penelope Cruz on screen was hard to fault but then again, this is a subjective issue. Otherwise, with a Director of Madden's calibre, & good casting of Christian Bale, David Morrisey, John Hurt, a breath taking location, a good script with a gradual progression of story line with an effective execution, it's a worthwhile movie to be savoured on the silver screen. The story about love, loyalty, betrayal, yearning, celebration of life, what else do you need? Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Surprising.
Review: In this film, Penelope Cruz finally gets to prove she is a great actor. Her scene with Nicholas Cage when he arrives home from the beach gives us a great insight into how deep her character's thoughts really are. The movie is also surprisingly not bogged down by slow-pacing and too much atmosphere (you get all the atmosphere you want from the beautiful cinematography shots of Greece, itself). Christian Bale performs wonderfully. I'm not a Nicholas Cage fan, but even he gave a pretty good performance in this one. Great story, great awkward moments. A delightful movie to see with a loved one or even a good friend.
Rating:
Summary: Heartwarming and true to life
Review: This was one of the best movies I've seen in a long time. It captured my intense interest and emotions. The accents could have been improved upon but that was minor in comparison to the story line.
Rating:
Summary: Melodramatic yet interesting.
Review: Watching "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" is like reading a paperback romance novel: it's full of melodrama and passion, and you can guess, for the most part, what will come of the situations they must face in order to stay together. Director John Madden, who directed the glorious "Shakespeare in Love," hasn't lost his touch with striking set pieces and vistas, though his plot pacing here tends to dwindle at times. The film takes place on the island of Ceppalonia in Greece, where the young peasant Pelagia (Penelope Cruz), and her father, Dr. Iannis (John Hurt), live in peace. At the time, World War II rages in Europe, though the town cannot begin to believe that they could possibly be affected in the future. Even Pelagia's fiancée, Mandras (Christian Bale), believes that once he arrives at the battle fronts, there will be little to accomplish. But the war soon grows, and the alliance between Germany and Italy leads to the occupation of various Grecian islands by Italian forces, including Ceppalonia. It is here that Pelagia meets Captain Antonio Corelli (Nicolas Cage), who makes a mockery of her beauty in front of his men but refuses her bed when he arrives at the doctor's home to stay. This begins their slowly building romance, which begins with her contempt for him over their circumstances of his arrival, and resonates into something more. Madden handles the film with a style that is impeccable, filling his canvas with vibrant colors and set pieces. Ceppalonia is seen as a place of beauty, even amidst the fervor of war, from the lush greenery of forests and plants to the colorful clothing and elaborate homes. However, the plot meanders aimlessly in certain scenes, mostly in the third act after the Germans have invaded Ceppalonia and are forcing the Italians out. Armies bombing one another, German bombers swooping down on Italians soldiers, troop transports arriving on the shores of the island... it all seems to a bit dull. What Madden does get right is the conveyance of a community torn apart by war, as people are driven from their homes and families are separated. Which leads me to the love story: there's nothing new to the romance except for the backdrop, and it takes some familiar turns. We know that they have to eventually fall in love; it's a given due to their discomfort with one another in the beginning. We also know that, at some point, their love will be put in jeopardy due to the extremities of war that surround them. But that rarely matters here, because Cage and Cruz fit into their roles exquisitely. Cage does some very impressive work as Corelli, not just with his Italian accent, but with his force and emotion as an actor. This works well with Cruz's Pelagia, who is modest yet strong in her morals. The two share a very warm chemistry together, and that makes some of the more familiar aspects of their romance seem new and invigorating. "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" won't earn a place in history as "Shakespeare in Love," though it manages to engage us in a romantic story that is overall pleasing. This epic of love and war will leave some listless while others with be fascinated; I fell in between the two.
Rating:
Summary: A sumptuous plot reduced to the bare essentials
Review: CAPTAIN CORELLI'S MANDOLIN is based on the book CORELLI'S MANDOLIN by Louis De Bernieres. "Based", at its loosest definition, is the operative term here. I would estimate that about 60% of the film has been faithfully translated from the book, the remainder being concocted from scratch to enhance the dramatic elements for an audience's short attention span. On the other hand, about 50% of the original, written version has been ignored. When one realizes that the film depicts a time span of about 7-8 years, while the novel's plot spans over 50, then this truncation is not unexpected. CORELLI'S MANDOLIN is a truly excellent literary piece. CAPTAIN CORELLI'S MANDOLIN is ...well, not bad, especially if it's your first exposure to the story. The main character is Pelagia, a young woman growing up with her widowed father on the Greek island of Cefallonia during World War Two, and who loves two men: Mandras, a neighbor who fights both with the Greek Army and the partisans, and Captain Antonio Corelli, an officer serving with the Italian occupying force. Generally speaking, both the book and the film examine the effects of the conflict on all four. The vast difference is in the particulars. Since the cinematic version was photographed entirely on Cefallonia itself, what it accomplishes superbly is to enable you to visualize the locales if you subsequently read the book for the first time, or again. (Not surprisingly, Pelagia's house, the village, and the beach were everything I'd imagined them to be in my mind's eye. This was most satisfying.) Moreover, Nicolas Cage is a perfectly adequate personification of the charming, music loving Captain Corelli. (Indeed, I understand that Cage learned to play the mandolin specifically for the role.) And, from this male's point of view, gorgeous Penélope Cruz is absolutely exquisite as Pelagia. The best role is John Hurt's as Pelagia's physician father, Iannis, who's at his most excellent in a scene wherein he imparts wisdom to his daughter on the nature of Love vs. Falling In Love. Also very good is David Morrissey as Captain Weber of the German Wehrmacht, ultimately devastated by the conflicting demands of friendship and duty. Less successfully, Christian Bale is cast in the role of Mandras, a credit of dubious distinction since that character has been completely gutted in the transition from the novel to the silver screen. (If I were Bale, I'd sue.) And nowhere to be seen is the novel's comic relief: Psipsina, Pelagia's pet pine marten. I liked this movie well enough. But sometimes a canvas painstakingly painted with small brushes and soft pastels has more appeal than the same oil dashed off with wide brushes and loud colors. The joy is in the subtlety and nuances of the details and shading. See the film if you have the opportunity, but do yourself a favor and make time to read the source material.
Rating: 
Summary: My stars are for the Greek island
Review: Yes, the scenery is really beautiful. I love the father-doctor. But what about Cage and Cruz? I do not really see why they are attracted to each other. (Although I am always attracted to Cage's eyes, but that is another story.) And with Cage, audience can be so sure nothing goes wrong with him in his movie. Everything is so predictable. I do not know why, but the only part I was moved was the part of the father-doctor and Cruz after the earthquake.
Rating:
Summary: A fine film, worth seeing.
Review: At last, a film that isn't trite, predictable or absent a plot. Captain Correlli is a an officer with the Italian army that invades a Greek isle during World War II. The Italian soldiers, unlike their menacing and coldly ruthless German allies, are polite and apologetic to their unwilling Greek hosts. The Italians love life, opera and romance, and largely befriend the Greek populace. Capt. Correlli, who is housed in the home of a local doctor (John Hurt) and his daughter Pelagia (Penelope Cruz), entertains with his mandolin and tries to win over the stoic Pelagia, whose boyfriend is off somewhere fighting the Italians with the Greek army. Then the Italian government surrenders to the Allies, and the German forces on the island are faced with a problem: what to do with their still armed, former Italian friends. When the Germans use some heavy-handed tactics to persuade the Italians to surrender their arms, events take a sudden, nasty turn. The acting in this film was quite credible, the costumes authentic, from the ribbons and medals on the German officer's chest to the plain peasant garb of the townsfolk. Heavy trucks and armored vehicles carry well-equipped troops noisily through the village, giving a feeling of being there. The action scenes of wartime hostilities are exciting and realistic. The human emotions are realistic too, and run the gamut from laughter to outrage to sorrow. I was entertained and moved by this film.
Rating:
Summary: Lovely town, lovely story.
Review: The sound of the Mandolin still floats in my ear, what a beautiful movie filled with sorrow. Nicolas Cage and penelope Cruz both showed in themselves vividly the attributes of their characters in those harsh times of War and love. The plot is wonderfully twisty also. But love was not all, the heart of the story was in the little town itself. Sitting on the cliffs above the sea, the city seemed so fragile as to be easily blown away by winds, yet, it has endured hundreds of years of human and natural diversities, surviving always with such confidence and pride. And that is because though houses can crumble and blood may flow, one thing can never be changed nor destoryed, and that is the spirite of the land, which sustains itself inside the tranquility of its air, and breeds everything within. This air is so powerful, that it could bound the gaps between nations, cure the curses of hatreds, and at last make loves happen between the most unlikely people in the most unfortunate time. Anyway, it is a very romantic film. P.S. The war as a whole was very much been ignored, and time phase was not clear.
Rating:
Summary: Captain Corelli's MAndolin
Review: This is an excellent movie set in the beautiful Greek Islands. Nicholas Cage and John Hurt played their roles superbly. Our only criticism is that Penelope Cruz may have been miscast. We didn't feel much electricity between the main couple. The movie showed the horrible reality of war. My wife and I were left somewhat confused by the little girl's blue eyes. Her age didn't seem to match up with the elapsed time (IF indeed, she was Captain Corelli's child). Maybe we need to see the movie again to see if we missed something.
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