The last half of the movie is undeniably gripping, creating a powerful love story for mature film-lovers.
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08/18/01
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Captain Corelli's Mandolin (2001)
29
%
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Reviews Counted:114
Fresh:33
Rotten:81
Average Rating:4.4/10
Consensus: The cinematography is gorgeous, but the movie plays it fast and loose with history and the novel it was adapted from. Mostly, the movie fails because the romance between the leads strains credulity and the story is largely uninvolving.
Theatrical Release:Aug 17, 2001 Wide
Box Office: $25,261,240
Synopsis: Academy Award (R) winner Nicolas Cage (City of Angels) and Penelope Cruz (All About My Mother) star in Captain Corelli's Mandolin, an epic tale about the enduring hope of love and the devastating... [More]
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Penélope Cruz, Christian Bale, John Hurt
Director: John Madden
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Reviews for Captain Corelli's Mandolin
Frivolous and utterly forgettable.
08/17/01
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.
08/17/01
Top CriticThe 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.
08/17/01
Top CriticThink of it as the anti-Pearl Harbor. Relying more on story and character than special effects, this moving adaptation of Louis de Bernières novel achieves everything that Michael Bay's empty spectacle could not.
08/17/01
The film's linguistic problems might be overlooked, where it not for the complete lack of believable romance between the pouty Cruz and the frisky Cage.
08/17/01
Top CriticIt's from a wry, teeming novel, but director John Madden (or someone) has left out a lot of connecting material, so Cruz seems to go for Cage only because it says so in the script.
08/17/01
A lovely tears- and-popcorn movie.
08/17/01
The catalyst for melting of her icy heart and attitude -- namely all of that jovial singing and mandolin playing -- will probably strain credibility for all but the most dyed in the wool, romantic diehards.
08/17/01
As wartime weepers go, Captain Corelli's Mandolin has a lot of pluck.
08/17/01
Top CriticNicolas Cage is such a fine, human actor that he can play a pure Italian stereotype in Captain Corelli's Mandolin and make him a man, not a caricature. The film, though, is beyond what Cage can do for it.
08/17/01
Handsome as it is, Captain Corelli's Mandolin doesn't really connect.
08/17/01
Like a folk ballad plucked on a mandolin, the new Nicolas Cage-Penelope Cruz film is sometimes overly familiar, even a bit maudlin, but still touchingly romantic.
08/17/01
We get surfaces wrapped around a hollow core. A composite cliche. A hodgepodge.
08/17/01
Under any circumstances, Captain Corelli's Mandolin would be a pretty poor excuse for a movie.
08/17/01
Not flashy enough for Hollywood nor deep enough for an art film.
08/17/01
Aspiring to melancholy wisdom and worldly significance, the movie achieves only a coy, frothy simulation of whatever we thought we loved about old-fashioned love stories.
08/17/01
Top CriticWe 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, Captain Corelli's Mandolin.
08/17/01
Top CriticPlods dutifully through muddy explanations of battles and alliances with unrelenting boredom.
08/17/01
A romance without passion, urgency, depth, or even a slight modicum of believability...easily one of the worst films of 2001.
08/17/01
Latest News for Captain Corelli's Mandolin
September 15, 2005:
Critical Consensus: Critics Thank "Heaven," But Don't Praise The "Lord"
This week at the movies brings us a supernatural romance ("Just Like Heaven"), a jaded arms dealer ("Lord of War") and two experiments in terror... More...
April 19, 2005:
Get Ready for Another Dose of "Basic Instinct"
You've heard it mentioned for years, but production is (finally) about to get underway on "Basic Instinct 2: Risk Addiction." A follow-up to Paul Verhoeven's sexual... More...
June 05, 2001:
Initial test screenings failed to induce awe. Universal, hoping for an Oscar contender, bumped the film from its spring release so that Madden could recut it. 
More...
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