Advanced Search >
Help Me Search

Movies

Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores

Wide Releases
Now In Theaters

sort by namesort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Limited Releases
Now In Theaters

sort by namesort by score

58 (Untitled)
96 35 Shots of Rum
56 Adam
72 Adela
39 Adventures of Power
78 Afghan Star
61 After the Storm
66 Afterschool
xx All the Best
58 American Casino
72 Amreeka
48 Antichrist
73 Araya
62 Art & Copy
55 As Seen Through These Eyes
76 Baader Meinhof Complex, The
86 Beaches of Agnes, The
13 Beautiful Life, A
70 Beeswax
35 Beyond a Reasonable Doubt
71 Big Fan
66 Black Dynamite
51 Blind Date
xx Blind Pig Who Wants to Fly
76 Bliss
35 Blue Tooth Virgin, The
26 Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, The
57 Boys Are Back, The
45 Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
81 Bright Star
70 Bronson
45 Burning Plain, The
xx Carriers
55 Casi Divas
57 Chelsea on the Rocks
62 Cloud 9
65 Coco Before Chanel
69 Cold Souls
59 Collapse
44 Confessionsofa Ex-Doofus-ItchyFooted Mutha
82 Cove, The
75 Crude
82 Damned United, The
67 Departures
xx Dil Bole Hadippa
71 Disgrace
xx Do Knot Disturb
70 Earth Days
24 Eating Out 3: All You Can Eat
85 Education, An
55 Endgame
xx Eulogy for a Vampire
xx Everyone Else
xx Fatal Promises
56 Fifty Dead Men Walking
62 Five Minutes of Heaven
74 Flame & Citron
49 Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution
80 Food, Inc.
28 Free Style
xx From Mexico with Love
50 Fuel
25 Gentlemen Broncos
50 Give Me Your Hand
58 Gogol Bordello Non-Stop
72 Good Hair
89 Goodbye Solo
52 Grace
64 Harmony and Me
81 Headless Woman, The
xx Heretics, The
63 Horse Boy, The
73 House of the Devil, The
xx How to Seduce Difficult Women
74 Humpday
94 Hurt Locker, The
29 I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
16 If One Thing Matters: A Film About Wolfgang Tillmans
75 In Search of Beethoven
83 In the Loop
61 Intimate Enemies
42 Irene in Time
70 It Might Get Loud
46 Killing Kasztner
19 Labor Day
xx Laila's Birthday
41 Little Ashes
41 Little Traitor, The
66 Liverpool
34 Looking for Palladin
80 Lorna's Silence
83 Maid, The
xx Ministers, The
59 More Than a Game
67 Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, The
34 Motherhood
62 My One and Only
xx Mystery Team
48 New York, I Love You
73 Night and Day
66 No Impact Man
47 Ong Bak 2: The Beginning
34 Other Man, The
xx Painter Sam Francis, The
54 Paper Heart
xx Paradise
68 Paranormal Activity
68 Paris
44 Peter and Vandy
35 Play the Game
77 Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
xx Pretty Ugly People
65 Providence Effect, The
76 Rembrandt's J'accuse
69 September Issue, The
79 Serious Man, A
40 Shrink
61 Skin
77 Skin Too Few: The Days of Nick Drake, A
xx Skiptracers
46 Splinterheads
39 St. Trinian's
89 Still Walking
50 Stoning of Soraya M., The
55 Storm
65 Tetro
70 That Evening Sun
72 Thirst
xx Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas 3D (re-release)
61 Trucker
xx Turning Green
83 U2 3D
66 Unmade Beds
66 Unmistaken Child
70 Visual Acoustics
55 Walt & El Grupo
67 Way We Get By, The
69 We Live in Public
64 Wedding Song, The
64 Where is Where?
xx White on Rice
74 Woman in Berlin, A
69 World's Greatest Dad
70 Yes Men Fix the World
69 Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg
xx You, the Living

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Captain Corelli's Mandolin

EMAILPRINTUniversal Pictures

Captain Corelli's Mandolin reviews
36
6.4 User Score:

Generally unfavorable reviews

Based on 33 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 15 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >

Movie Info

Genre(s): War

Written by: Shawn Slovo
Louis de Bernières (book)

Directed by: John Madden

Release Date:
Theatrical: August 17, 2001
DVD: February 5, 2002

Running Time: 120 minutes, Color

Origin: UK / France / USA

Summary

RATING: R for some violence, sexuality and language

Starring Nicolas Cage, Penélope Cruz, John Hurt, Christian Bale, and David Morrissey

A World War II drama about a beautiful Greek villager (Cruz) and the Italian soldier (Cage), part of Mussolini's occupying army, who wins her heart.

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

88

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Although it's in the same genre as "The English Patient," it's a vastly better movie --more surprising and original, more rigorous and sympathetic. This film is oddly shaped. It is also heartbreaking and exhilarating.

Read Full Review >
80

TV Guide Frank Lovece

The able cast brings these emotionally complex characters to life, while making Shawn Slovo's occasionally lyrical dialogue sound perfectly natural.

Read Full Review >
75

USA Today Mike Clark

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.

Read Full Review >
75

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

It's beautifully shot on Cephallonian locations by superb landscape photographer John Toll.

75

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

A handsomely staged and craftily constructed tearjerker.

Read Full Review >
67

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

Ultimately, it's a surprisingly empty experience.

Read Full Review >
63

Miami Herald Connie Ogle

Never reaches this level of devastating loss despite its tragedies, but it's not the dismal bomb that much of the British press claims.

Read Full Review >
63

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

Grand passion, secrecy, world politics and mortal danger provide a heady mix for this spectacularly beautiful movie. If only the accents were as reliable as the azure of the sea.

Read Full Review >
60

Mr. Showbiz Kevin Maynard

Good old-fashioned romantic entertainment, just restrained enough to skirt schmaltz.

50

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

In this film there is a scene where something is said in English pronounced with one accent, and a character asks, ''What did he say?'' and he is told -- in English pronounced with another accent.

Read Full Review >
50

San Francisco Chronicle Bob Graham

Handsomely weathered John Hurt, as Pelagia's father, gives a performance of such unhackneyed dignity that it provides a moral compass for the action and helps to keep the ricocheting emotional content of the film in balance.

Read Full Review >
50

Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector

Strives for comprehensive coverage of its theme of forbidden love.

Read Full Review >
50

Boston Globe Jay Carr

Doesn't so much strike a lot of sour notes as fail to strike the right ones.

50

Entertainment Weekly Staff (Not credited)

A movie that reduces history, as well as eros, to a postcard.

Read Full Review >
50

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

The only aspect that emerges a winner is the gorgeous Mediterranean scenery.

Read Full Review >
50

Time Richard Corliss

Corelli is a coffee-table movie: one leafs through the gorgeous vistas and nods through the narrative.

50

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Partly a travelogue for the Greek islands, partly a simplistic love story, and generally a rehash of the Oscar-winning "Mediterraneo," as if we needed even the first one.

Read Full Review >
42

Portland Oregonian Barry Johnson

No crime against the moviemaker's art, but it is flawed in a way we wouldn't expect from the director of "Shakespeare in Love."

Read Full Review >
40

Village Voice Jessica Winter

Ms. Cruz...once again proves her inability to give a bad performance even under the worst of circumstances.

Read Full Review >
40

Austin Chronicle Steve Davis

Neither a badly miscast Cage nor an oddly dispassionate Cruz remotely suggest the ardor of love's passion.

Read Full Review >
40

Variety Derek Elley

Strikes too many false notes on the dramatic side to add up to a satisfying emotional experience.

Read Full Review >
30

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

Based on an interminable 1994 international bestseller by Louis de Bernières that I found impossible to make my way through. 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.

Read Full Review >
30

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Given the polyglot nature of the cast, with actors from at least five countries taking their best shots at the English language, it's unclear why Cage felt he needed an accent or, stranger still, why it took him a reported seven months to come up with this one.

Read Full Review >
30

New Times (L.A.) Bill Gallo

The moviemakers have eliminated the finer points of the novel in favor of broad strokes. Very broad strokes.

Read Full Review >
30

Newsweek David Ansen

Every role is miscast. Whose idea was it to have the boyishly British Bale play an illiterate Greek peasant, or the elegant Hurt a gruff-voiced country doctor? Cruz’s run of bad luck in American movies continues.

Read Full Review >
25

New York Post Lou Lumenick

We began this dismal movie season with one lethally bad World War II romance -- "Pearl Harbor" -- and now we're wrapping up with another howling dog.

Read Full Review >
20

The New York Times Stephen Holden

As the movie methodically plods forward on a screenplay (by Shawn Slovo) consisting entirely of clichés and watered-down exposition, it becomes sadly apparent that its only reliable asset is the gorgeous view.

Read Full Review >
20

Salon.com Charles Taylor

Sells ignorance as a refined evening's entertainment.

Read Full Review >
20

Washington Post Rita Kempley

A bungled screen version of Louis de Bernieres' cult novel, Captain Corelli's Mandolin was doomed from the moment Nicolas Cage was cast as the "life-devouring," Puccini-loving hero.

Read Full Review >
20

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

The real problem is not the maudlin script or Madden's travelogue touch. It's Cage as Corelli, a miscasting that turns the normally volatile, edgy performer into little more than a spokesman for the Olive Garden.

Read Full Review >
20

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

I wish I'd brought a pair of peas to the screening. Then I could have taken in the glorious scenery without the dumb dialogue, which is delivered in a jangle of accents that makes a mockery of ethnicity.

20

LA Weekly Chuck Wilson

To be fair, it's not solely Cage's fault that his new film, Captain Corelli's Mandolin, is lousy -- director John Madden (Shakespeare in Love) deserves most of the heat for this listless dud.

Read Full Review >
10

Slate David Edelstein

Probably the most horrifying stuff I've seen all week.

Read Full Review >

What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 6.4 (out of 10) based on 15 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

hatem s. gave it a10:
It's a very nice romantic story with some action and with a very great sound track especially the Pelagia Song.

Alexander gave it a 0:
I thought this was a terrible adaptation of the book, some of the very humerous facts where cut out. Especially what happened to Pelagia and Captain Corelli. I also thought the acting was terrible and I did not think much of Nicolas Cage as Captain Corelli thought I do think he is a good actor but just not in this film because of the accent. I am sorry but that is why I have given this move such a low rating

Mike K. gave it a 9:
While I would have liked better accents, at it wasn't as bad as Enemy at the Gates...Russians with British accents? WTF? I though overall that this was a wonderful movie. Beautiful scenery and the general storyline is it's strengths. I did NOT read the book so I wasn't expecting anything. Acting was decent. I agree that Christian Bale was not the best pick for his role (American Psycho fits him better). Penelope Cruz while beautiful (don't be so jealously hateful Darcy... :) ), I think someone else could have played her part more "realistically". As for Cage, dunno...jury is still out on him in this movie.

Johnny B. gave it a 10:
Well done...beautiful romantic and thrilling. Soundtrack is worthwhile purchase. Never read the novel...but cheers to producer! Novel and movie don't always have to be the same. Bravo!

Christine N. gave it a 1:
Horrible !! WHAT a shame that beautifull and compelling book was so badly represented. The actors chosed to play the main characters did nothing to bring them to life = Cruz was just too THIN to be a believable Greek beauty and her acting was horrendous - as for Cage he spoiled the whole movie with his dreadful accent which kept slipping . The only saving grace was the photography.

Jim D. gave it a 2:
What on earth happened to that wonderful, touching, fascinating novel? Everything special about the book has been leeched out for this terrible film.

Michael R. gave it a 9:
A very beautiful adaption of the book...and as far as accents are concerned, what does one expect in an American movie....Greek? Some of the so-called professional criticisms in this respect are entirely unwarranted.

Read more user comments >

Popular on CBS sites: SEC Football | NFL | Video Game Cheats | iPhone | Video Game Reviews | Notebooks | Antivirus Software

About CBS Interactive | Jobs | Advertise

© 2009 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use