The Los Angeles premiere of Captain Corelli's Mandolin turned into a Hollywood freak show this week as the paparazzi descended on the venue like storm troopers.

Their mission? Capture the movie's femme co-star Penelope Cruz arm-in-arm with her new beau, superstar Tom Cruise, who is newly divorced from Nicole Kidman.

The secondary target? Snap some shots of male lead Nicolas Cage -- who divorced Patricia Arquette in May and is rumoured to have had a fling with Cruz during filming -- when he showed up holding hands with Lisa Marie Presley.

What that did was obscure the reason all of them were there: To introduce English director John Madden's quaint World War II romance set on an idyllic Greek island occupied by Mussolini's opera-loving Italian troops in the 1940s.

Few Hollywood movies this summer could be less about glitz and glam than Captain Corelli's Mandolin. The movie, based on the Louis de Bernieres novel and adapted to the screen by South African-born writer Shawn Slovo (A World Apart), tells the story of how the Italians shrugged off their war duties and spent the occupation singing songs, staging beach parties with prostitutes and thumbing their noses at uptight German Nazis in their midst.

While the big picture is getting relaxed, Corelli (played with overacting, scenery-chewing, mandolin-playing gusto by Cage) is falling in love with a local Greek woman (Cruz) who is the daughter of a doctor (John Hurt). She also happens to be engaged to a Greek freedom fighter (Christian Bale).

Later, when the rules of conflict change after the fall of Il Duce, all hell will break loose because real war intrudes, as it did here on the island of Cephallonia in real life. The Corelli tale, however, plays it like a myth.

It doesn't always play well. Acted mostly in English with a smattering of background Greek, Italian and German, the movie features a variety of choices, from Cruz's modified Spanish lilt to Hurt's actorly transformation to Bale's awful cartoon voice to Cage's big, boistrous Italian accent that makes him sound like a wine-soaked extra in a lusty opera.

The film also suffers from unwanted tonal shifts, surprising because Madden (Oscar-winning Shakespeare In Love, Mrs. Brown) is such an accomplished filmmaker. Instead of smooth transitions based on events and character, the story seems to lurch from romance to comedy to grim war scenes and finally to a Hollywood hokum ending.

So it never seems real and authentic. It is always a movie, sometimes charming, sometimes a paint-by-numbers piece with really pretty images. That said, Hurt is simply splendid, a rock among pebbles, and you get to see Greek acting legend Irene Papas (Zorba The Greek) in a support role.

As for Cruz, she demonstrates how much the camera loves to caress her skin and look deep into her eyes. Her role does not require a huge range here, but, accent aside, she imbues each moment on screen with a quiet intensity and an intelligence that suggests she will do great things one day. (More on: Captain Corelli's Mandolin).

(This film is rated AA)

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