Captain Corelli's Mandolin (2001)

29% of critics liked it
(115 reviews)
50% of users liked it
(33,536 ratings)

Louis de Bernières' best-selling novel of love during wartime is brought to the screen in this story that blends comedy, action, and romance. In 1940, war rages throughout Europe, but the fighting has yet to arrive on the Greek island of Cephallonia, where life continues to follow its own slow,… More Louis de Bernières' best-selling novel of love during wartime is brought to the screen in this story that blends comedy, action, and romance. In 1940, war rages throughout Europe, but the fighting has yet to arrive on the Greek island of Cephallonia, where life continues to follow its own slow, deliberate path until word arrives that Italian troops have invaded neighboring Albania. A wave of anti-Axis patriotism sweeps the island, and Mandras (Christian Bale), a local fisherman, is one of a handful of men who volunteer for the army, leaving behind his aging mother (Irene Papas) and the woman he loves, Pelagia (Penélope Cruz), the daughter of the island's physician, Dr. Iannis (John Hurt). The timing of Mandras and his compatriots proves less than fortuitous, as Italian troops invade Greece in their absence, but the remaining leaders of the island issue an ultimatum -- the people of Cephallonia will surrender, but only to a ranking German officer. Since none of the available German officers can speak a word of Greek, an Italian soldier fluent in the language, Capt. Antonio Corelli (Nicholas Cage), is sent in to serve as translator. Corelli stays on with the Greek occupation forces, and he soon finds himself falling in love with beautiful Pelagia, who believes that Mandras was killed in the fighting in Albania. But as romance slowly blooms between the Italian soldier and the Greek girl, Mandras and a handful of surviving soldiers have joined a guerilla resistance faction, and they join up with Allied forces in a bid to retake Greece; soon, Pelagia must choose between the two men she loves, as the Greeks battle both the Italian occupation troops and German soldiers who have been sent in to replace them. Captain Corelli's Mandolin was directed by John Madden; the project originally began shooting with Roger Michell, but Michell was forced to resign from the film after he suffered a heart attack. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

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Rating, Runtime: R, 2 hr. 7 min.
Directed By: John Madden
Written By: Shawn Slovo, Louis de Bernières
Genres: Drama, Romance

In Theaters: Aug 17, 2001 Limited
On DVD: Feb 5, 2002
Studio: Universal Pictures

Critic Reviews

Derek Elley, Variety
Strikes too many false notes on the dramatic side to add up to a satisfying emotional experience.
Peter Rainer, New York Magazine
The movie duplicates exactly my experience with the book, although I must say I was thankful to be spared serial outbreaks of hearty Greek dancing.
Rita Kempley, Washington Post
Cage's ancestors may have come from the Old Country, but he's no more Italian than Franco-American SpaghettiOs.
Charles Taylor, Salon.com
The movie's craft is dead and dutiful. It's an Oscar machine.
(CNN.com) Paul Clinton, CNN.com
Based on an actual Greek tragedy of epic proportions, which inspired a novel by Louis de Bernieres, Captain Corelli's Mandolin has finally been adapted to the big screen, with largely positive results.
Mike Clark, USA Today
The result is far from perfect, but to its many merits, add timing. You never get a movie with this kind of story in mid-August, when studios usually dump youth-audience dogs before the kids go back to school.
, Film4
Nicolas Cage and Penélope Cruz are ill-matched, and the range of heavy accents is distracting.
Betsy Bozdech, Reel.com
As a grand love story and a stirring war movie, Corelli ultimately falls short.
Geoff Andrew, Time Out
The film's perfectly watchable, but it's never more than that.
Jim Shelby, Palo Alto Weekly
A romance as spectacular as this novel is, it still has a difficult job making the leap to the screen.
John R. McEwen, Film Quips Online
...Touching and at the same time brutal, brimming with the emotional conflict that surges within its characters.
Matthew Turner, ViewLondon
Gorgeous to look at and well-played, it's definitely watchable, yet strangely uninvolving.
Margaret A. McGurk, Cincinnati Enquirer
A lot of talent was squandered on this incoherent grab bag of war-movie moments.
Mark Halverson, Sacramento News & Review
A historical drama that simply fails to make convincing human connections.
Kevin N. Laforest, Montreal Film Journal
Here's a film with all the right ingredients which somehow manages to taste bland as a hell.
Betty Jo Tucker, ReelTalk Movie Reviews
The stunning look of this film took my breath away and overcame its shortcomings for me.
Paul Salfen, Supercala.com
Yet another WWII love triangle that suffers from bad acting, but looks great!
Sean Burns, Philadelphia Weekly
...feels as if it has been manufactured in a chop shop of former Oscar winners and nauseating Miramax 'prestige' puff pieces.
James Sanford, Kalamazoo Gazette
The Greek tourism board couldn't have turned out a more persuasive commercial. Buying the various twists and turns of Shawn Slovo's screenplay, however, is more difficult.
Luis Martinez, Cinenganos
La novela, disponible en cualquier librería, es una gran realización; desgraciadamente al llevarla a los 24 cuadros por segundo, perdió mucha de su fuerza.

Read all 20 critic reviews

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Fresh (60% or more critics rated the movie positively)

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Featured Audience Ratings

Douglas W C

okay
Film C

IVE SEEN THIS lol i like this movie i think its a nice enough war love story thats cute and keeps you interested!
Wahida K

Brilliant! Once the film warms up beyond the opening sequence this film keep you focused on it.
Ross C

Essentially "The English Patient" set on a Greek Island. It has all the same ingredients, but isn't quite such a powerful movie and the inconsistent accents hardly helped. Lots of Mediterranean charm and a worthy history lesson too.
Anthony L

Miscast, overlong, unconvincing and above all boring. Painful!
Candy R

Story of love during war time. Beautiful settings.
Nate Z

[font=Arial][color=darkred]John Madden you sly dog. I don't know how you do it but somehow you manage to get an accredited actress to take off her clothes for you. In your film Shakespeare in Love it was Gwyneth Paltrow going topless (which she also won an Oscar for, dare I say,… More
[font=Arial][color=darkred]John Madden you sly dog. I don't know how you do it but somehow you manage to get an accredited actress to take off her clothes for you. In your film Shakespeare in Love it was Gwyneth Paltrow going topless (which she also won an Oscar for, dare I say, in no coincidence), and thank God you didn't get Dame Judi Dench to try it out with the previous film Mrs. Brown. And now with the horrifically titled Captain Corelli's Mandolin you have coaxed the beautiful Penelope Cruz into baring her breasts as well, no doubt in hopes of winning some of that coveted Oscar gold. And although I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to see the lovely Cruz minus a stitch above the waist, frankly, Corelli ain't no Shakespeare.[/color][/font] [font=Arial][color=darkred][/color][/font] [font=Arial][color=darkred][/color][/font][font=Arial][color=darkred]We open on an island on the offshoot of Greece in the start of the 1940s. The waters are blue, the sand is white, the people are happily ethnic, and it's basically a postcard. The island is overpopulated with idyllic beauties and friendly people and then evil evil war had to come and steal the innocence. Cruz plays a woman who has a first name that I have no clue of or remotely how to pronounce it, but I am certain it began with a P. Cruz is studying to be a doctor under the tutelage of her wise old customed father (John Hurt). She's engaged to be wed to hunky fisherman Mandras (Christian Bale) until the war threatens their peaceful isolated world. Mandras feels the patriotic urge to go to war and thwart the advancing Italians and Cruz pines for his safe return writing letter after letter with no answer to only fear the worst.[/color][/font] [font=Arial][color=darkred]As the war continues the Italians do advance further and take occupation of the Greek island. Captain Antonio Corelli (Nicolas Cage) is amongst the divisions assembled to this Mediterranean isle. He is agreed to stay in Cruz's home and, as always, begins to develop feelings for Cruz. She feels some as well but is torn on what her actions should be. Corelli, it turns out, is far more a singer than a fighter. He has a battalion of men he dubs his "opera" and they break into frequent song and an overall zeal for life. They run around drinking and singing on the beaches complete with topless women making this Italian occupation seem like summer camp.[/color][/font] [font=Arial][color=darkred]The good times don't last of course and the war rages closer and closer. Soon the Italian army surrenders and then the Germans come in to retake occupation of the Greek island. Corelli must decide to go home or help fight amongst the guerrillas and native people to keep their beautiful land away from Nazi hands.[/color][/font] [font=Arial][color=darkred]Penelope Cruz seems to be heavily pushed on me by Hollywood. They keep casting her in movies and telling me I like her, when in fact, I have seen nothing of hers to prove so. Corelli may be the finest American work she's done, but hell, what is that saying? She is too mute at times and the emotions that we should see tearing her up are simply dampened by her staring downcast or biting her lip. Well . . . at least she looks partially Greek.[/color][/font] [font=Arial][color=darkred]Cage is an Italian-American, and yet his Italian accent is atrociously comical. His performance is like the Joker doing an Italian accent. He also kisses like he is trying to swallow poor Penelope's tiny head. Somehow beyond my reasoning the talented Christian Bale got in this movie. He's about as convincing as a Greek as Laurence Olivier was as a Moor. The rest of the cast is filled with Greek people portraying Greek people.[/color][/font] [font=Arial][color=darkred]The love story of Captain Corelli's Mandolin is a mish-mash of uninvolving war violence and a cloying romance that never gets into the proper gear. There are elements of guilt and affection, but they aren't transcendent of any reality. The first time Corelli tells Cruz he loves her they have sex in a field that very moment. There is not enough groundwork laid to produce a decent romance. So the supposed "smolder" between Cruz and Cage is thematically unbelievable, and kind of a bit creepy.[/color][/font] [font=Arial][color=darkred]Corelli suffers from A.I. syndrome in that it desperately needed to end twenty minutes earlier than it did. [/color][/font][url="javascript:void(0)"][font=Arial][color=darkred]The fact that Cage survives a machine gun execution because a [b]SINGLE[/b] [b]PERSON[/b] stood in front of him is bad[/color][/font][/url][font=Arial][color=darkred], but it gets even worse for the inhabitants of the Greek island. [/color][/font][url="javascript:void(0)"][font=Arial][color=darkred]Some get hung by their own people, some get shot in the face from Germans, and then everyone must suffer after the war by having an earthquake level half of their town.[/color][/font][/url][font=Arial][color=darkred] This stretch of film goes from pointless to comically absurd. It's like Madden fell asleep in his director's chair and someone thought, "Well, let's model the last act of the film after a Universal tram ride. Hey, can we have Jaws pop out of the water at some point?" Corelli has failed as a romance and during its end stretch it completely fails as any kind of cogent drama.[/color][/font] [font=Arial][color=darkred]The direction is adequate by Madden but the script just doesn't cut the mustard. In the end they rely on the old Hollywood principal of Nazis being pure evil, so much so they might as well have mustaches to twirl. I thought at one moment they were going to tie Cruz to a railroad track and would have preferred it if they had. This is a film caught between romance and war, and it does a disservice to both. The war is a naive afterthought and the romance lacks any credibility. The scenery sure looks nice though. In the end, Captain Corelli's Mandolin is a film desperately out of tune.[/color][/font] [font=Arial][color=darkred]Nate's Grade: C-[/color][/font]
Dannielle A

I have no idea what drew me to this story, but it made me think a lot. First of all, it had one of the best movie lines of all time between Cruz's character Pelagia and her father about what true love is. In the beginning, I wanted Pelagia to marry her fiancé Mandras and be loyal… More
I have no idea what drew me to this story, but it made me think a lot. First of all, it had one of the best movie lines of all time between Cruz's character Pelagia and her father about what true love is. In the beginning, I wanted Pelagia to marry her fiancé Mandras and be loyal to her promise. I couldn't understand what ever drew her to Corelli. But then I understood later in the movie and I didn't like the character of Mandras anymore. It wasn't the greatest movie and I wouldn't see it again, but it did have some great lines.
Naughtia N

This movie tells a tragic story from Greece during WWII. Greece has been invaded by the Italy and lots of Italian soldiers occuppy the beautiful Greek village. Captain Corelli falls in love with a beautiful local girl and tragic circumstances are trying to keep them apart. This movie… More
This movie tells a tragic story from Greece during WWII. Greece has been invaded by the Italy and lots of Italian soldiers occuppy the beautiful Greek village. Captain Corelli falls in love with a beautiful local girl and tragic circumstances are trying to keep them apart. This movie had great romance and a tragic story. I liked it very much.
Deb S

"Capt. Corelli's Mandolin" is an old fashioned romance set on the Greek island of Cephalonia, where Italian and German occupation has taken over the otherwise peaceful town during World War II. Nic Cage plays an Italian soldier who loves opera and believes in making… More
"Capt. Corelli's Mandolin" is an old fashioned romance set on the Greek island of Cephalonia, where Italian and German occupation has taken over the otherwise peaceful town during World War II. Nic Cage plays an Italian soldier who loves opera and believes in making love, not war. Penelope Cruz plays the Greek girl who is betrothed to a fisherman (Christian Bale) but who falls in love with Cage. John Hurt did a credible job as the local doctor. The main problems with the film are the dubious accents of all the main actors, its sluggish pace and the dialogue is a bit on the sappy side of things. What I did like about the movie was the scenery. The landscapes were absolutely beautiful.
Nicolas K

The film is rather flat. the only great thing about this film would be the beautiful island of Cephallonia it was filmed on.
Angela A

I loved the book and was expecting great things from the movie, but actually I'm too annoyed at all the glaring differences. The movie has tried to drag out more emotion and managed to destroy all the drama that was originally in the book. Maybe I should have waited a few years… More
I loved the book and was expecting great things from the movie, but actually I'm too annoyed at all the glaring differences. The movie has tried to drag out more emotion and managed to destroy all the drama that was originally in the book. Maybe I should have waited a few years between the book and the movie. I'm sure it's a great movie if there's nothing to compare it against.
Barry L

Superb film. The backdrop is to die for and I went there so I should know.
Leo L

A good movie!