Mike76

So, it would be me who hasn't "understood" the film, mistakenly demanding verisimilitude because it doesn’t intend to be a historical and realistic film but "based on a comic" and can therefore afford anything. Mmmhh... it’s like saying that "Tomb Raider" is a great film because it’s based on a video game. I don't know, maybe in ten or twenty years I'll reassess it in a trashy light along with "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" (the vintage charm works wonders), but for now, it’s a solid 1.

No, no, you’re gravely mistaken, Punisher. My rating isn’t a provocation; it’s a 1, even considering the film as mere entertainment without nitpicking alleged political meanings and references to current events like many do, which honestly don’t interest me. The film is poorly made and predictable, that’s all. But have you seen the WOLF? It can compete in ridiculousness with the shark from Tomb Raider 2; even Disney movies don’t use CGI in such a horrific way. Not to mention the monsters, the elephants, and the rhinoceros, or the fifteen-meter leap a Spartan takes to kill the Persian during his exploration (worse than the old Hong Kong films): these are effects that no longer impress and will make people laugh even now, let alone in ten years. A triumph of digitally altered abs. And then the usual scenes of cinema twisted in on itself: the child who survives only to breathe his last in the arms of the protagonist, the traitor so clever that he carries gold Persian coins just to get caught, and other nonsense. Battle scenes that have been seen a thousand times. The Persian Immortals, who are a mix between a Venetian mask and a ninja and are also ogres... one One ONE and forever one!!

@Vellutogrigio My grandfather (whom I never knew) was in Rhodes until he was captured by the Germans after the armistice and interned in the Hannover concentration camp. Anyway, I mentioned Rhodes more as a good example of colonialism (if there ever was a "good" colonialism) than as a theater of war. The little island that sets the scene for the film can be more comparable to our Linosa or Giannutri, small islands of very little strategic importance and thus spared from the fury of war. I don't find it so unlikely that a contingent of soldiers arriving there could have "forgotten" about the war. I also believe that there are many better war films than "Mediterraneo"; the fact is that "Mediterraneo," as many have pointed out, is not a war film.

ANYWAY, being on vacation in Rhodes...

"Horrible and sly, it describes an Italy that never existed, the myth of the good and in love soldier, of camaraderie. War, instead, was hell, the Italians pieces of shit." The film does not describe Italy. Can a soldier not be good or in love? Can't camaraderie exist? Alright, war was hell, but it didn’t reach every little island and rocky shore of Greece. "The Italians pieces of shit" is an auto-racist cliché that doesn’t make you any better than Salvatores, who perhaps goes a bit too far in the opposite direction. Anyway, while on vacation in Rhodes, I had the chance to talk with locals who lived through that period and they didn’t have bad memories of Italian rule, quite the opposite. Sure, Italians did their share of wrongs, but the stereotype of the "piece of shit" Italian is wrong just as much as that of the "good" Italian. Wrong like all stereotypes, I would say. I saw the film a long time ago, but I have positive memories.

Oral Fixation Tour??!!! Maybe a slightly flirty title....

Devastating cross between "The Lord of the Rings" and a PlayStation game.

Horror Evacui....

I can't wait to see it; the book it's based on isn't bad at all. Unfortunately, I don't think the reason the film isn't distributed in Afghanistan is the noble one of worrying about inciting racial hatred, but rather the mere fact of depicting a rape scene, specifically sodomy, which is unthinkable in a still ultra-bigoted country. Moreover, I heard that the boys who shot the scene had to leave the country for security reasons. Afghanistan still has a long way to go. "The umpteenth move to blind a people that has been too repressed up to now" – I rule that out; the main issue may be that Afghans are not one people but a collection of peoples still very much divided.

The TMC are missing from my music collection; I'll definitely have to get at least one of their three albums. Review OK.