Lame. Lame. Lame.

Rating: 2/10 (9 October 2013)

I voted two instead of zero because the island is wonderful and I grudgingly admit that I really appreciated the camera. But story-wise? Why the hell did they even bother using the name of the book when the only thing they used was names and a very, very crude initial settings? The amazing transformation of Mandras from every-day village lad to the bottom pit of human scum - gone. Carlo, a whole storyline of beauty, sorrow and prevailing humanity - reduced to twenty seconds of valiant dying that leaves us wondering why (and why the hell so long?). The book was about life first and foremost, and all its aspects - love, death, survival, cruelty, kindness, nonsense and magic etc. This movie is a weird watered down love story of a highly improbable Nicolas Cage and Penelope Cruz (who's actually OK despite her Spanish accent :-) ) with all the rawness and irresistibility of the forces of the human heart and twisted minds vanished. I was left wondering why the hell did they even fall in love, I didn't feel their love at all, the movie was full of loose ends and weirdnesses - what the hell was Mandras doing popping in and out all the time? Meaningful parts of the book were discarded while bullshit and inconsistent though nicely hollywoody passages added... OK, it is a bitter diatribe but I actually registered IMDb to voice my disgust, so there you go. If you didn't read the book and liked the movie, read the book, you'll be blown over. If you didn't read the book and hated the movie, read the book, you'll be blown over. Howgh.