Enormous to do about very little

Rating: Null/10 (28 June 2002)

Gorgeous cinematography and two beautiful actresses certainly give a movie a good start, but that's really all this movie has. Moreover, the lead actor, in what amounts to 2 roles (before and after the accident), plays an unattractive character, cold and monochromatic. In a somewhat pivotal scene, Laszlo stares at Katharine while he is dancing with her like an inexperienced young man who has read a book on how to dominate girls. Indeed, why Katharine would even look at Laszlo when she is married to the manifestly nicer and better looking Geoffrey, is the movie's biggest mystery. For the rest, although the movie is supposedly about World War II, there is almost no mention of politics, no mention at all of religion, nobody seems to have any place they have to be (in wartime, soldiers don't get to just hang around where they please), and the morals are suited to a rabbit hutch. Oh, and the Germans are brutal (how can you have a movie take place in the 1940s without a nice German torture scene?), the British are vulgar, and the Americans just plain stupid (the scene on the bridge). That this movie won 9 academy awards can only testify to the poverty of today's film industry.