One of the worst war films ever

dkrathbun

Despite the interesting cast (Elliot Gould! David Niven! Roger Moore as a German! Sonny Bono!) and the truly amazing scenery on the island of Rhodes, I have to disagree with other posters on this site who have given this film even a modestly positive rating. This has to be one of the worst war films ever.

If you've ever seen Kelly's Heroes (1970), you may remember Donald Sutherland's character Oddball, who spoke in a late-60s, early-70s hippy-dippy patois, calling things "groovy" and "out-a-sight" and so on. This kind of anachronistic speech spoils large sections of Escape to Athena. I wonder how old the script was at the time it was made... When Gould's character says to Moore's that he will have the "grooviest camp around," I had to check the release date (NINE years after Kelly's Heroes).

***SPOILERS AHEAD*** Near the end of the film, when the true objective of the Greek resistance becomes clear (a V-2 type rocket installation), the Germans roll out one of their weapons, trailed by a company of men in (anachronistic) mirrored-visor helmets. I presume that buying the helmets was cheaper than hiring more extras, since they allowed any actor, even one that had appeared earlier, who had been shot or blown up, to reappear in a jumpsuit and helmet and...march...slowly... in lockstep....behind...a rocket...without performing any function whatsoever! It's laughable! I though I had suddenly fallen through a filmic wormhole into a bad James Bond imitation.

A complete waste of time.

score 1/10

dkrathbun 7 June 2011

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2440153/