The Odyssey (1997) I saw the dvd which, apparently, is 40'-50' shorter than the miniseries in two parts so it is possible that the syrens episode got cut in the transfer. Which makes it no less inexcusable. Main problem with this is that compared to the two italian versions made in the '50's and '60's it pales for numbers of reasons. The main problem is in the casting: Assante is no Fehmiu, of course (Konchalovski should have known that Italians and Greeks are morphologically different); but, even worse, is no Kirk Douglas (nobody can be Kirk Douglas). He's a good actor, but Ulysses is out of his reach. Greta Scacchi, unfortunately, suffers from the comparison with Papas who, after having played her role 30 years before, now plays Ulysses' mother: and though not pretty even 30 years before, still she makes you understand at a glance that she's the real thing (and still, at her age, very attractive). Of course Scacchi can't hold a candle to Silvana Mangano as to sheer beauty: so the main characters of the story are miscast. The actor playing Telemachus is embarassing, while Bernadette Peters earns the palm as ugliest Circe of film history. Isabella Rossellini of course can't play for life but has still the looks of a woman. On the plus you have gorgeous Vanessa Williams as Calypso. But in the other two versions you had Rossana Podestà and Barbara Bach playing Nausicaa (a character almost invisible in the american movie) who amply made up for beauty. Talking about the movie, the Poliphemus episode here is depressing: where in the italian version you have a short horror movie, here the story looks like a joke. I could go on and on listing major and minor defects, but I think is enough. Still the movie is worth watching for some episodes: the Scylla and Caribdes episode makes up for the lacking horror in Poliphemus encounter; the Ade's descent is good in the beginning, and the return to Ithaca shows Assante at his best. 7\10
The Dogs of War - 7-8/10 - Retains the structure and basic plot of the novel while changing a lot of the particulars. The movie's biggest deviation is trying to make its protagonist, Shannon, sympathetic, rather than Forsyth's cold-blooded mercenary. I don't object overmuch to this, and if anything it makes the The Professionals-style cop-out ending more palatable, but in this regard it's significantly different from the novel. Still, it delivers what it promises - intricate plotting, Forsythian attention to detail and a bloody, adrenaline-soaked climax - and you can't really fault it for that.
We're talkin' about the Walken flick, directed by John Irvin (Hamburger Hill) ?If so - we agree: an old flying-under-the-radar favorite of mine, though I haven't seen it in ages.