victor-65

Ok, it's a given that you cannot make a good movie from a good book. (Unless you make it a trilogy :-) But comparing the book Corelli's Mandolin to this movie it's clear how much has to be cut to fit a screenplay. The book is very funny in places, romantic (of course), dramatic. What's left of it in the film is inexplicable romance -- as other reviewers have remarked, it's unclear why she falls in love with the italian while her betrothed is still around, and I have no idea why this was changed from the book -- and some gratuitous gunning and bombing scenes, more than in the book which derives its power from not hammering on the obvious points. Whole characters are cut: Carlo has maybe 10 seconds screen time, while in the book he has a whole story line that runs several chapters.

The movie itself was pretty bad. Only the amount of skin shown made it bearable. Or if you find Antonio Banderas cute.

Here's my peeve: if the majority of the movie played seven-plus years ago, the businessman wouldn't have had a titanium powerbook: he would have had a black one. The photographer would not have had a cube, but a 25th anniversary Mac. And his digital camera was way too fancy for that time.

V.