Captain Corelli's Mandolin

As beautiful as she is, Penelope Cruz is oddly uncompelling as the Greek doctor’s daughter who first resists, then falls for an officer of the occupying Italian army (Nicolas Cage, putting on his best ”mamma mia” accent) during WWII. Her pouty waifishness bears little resemblance to the feisty heroine of Louis de Bernieres’ 1994 historical-romantic-philosophical novel, here condensed into a convention-filled love-in-wartime picture that unspools like visual CliffsNotes. B-

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