Star rating: *
Dir: Mike Newell
With: Javier Bardem, Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Benjamin Bratt

War, cholera, poverty - anything would be preferable to sitting through this costumed hooey again. What happened here? The film is based on Gabriel Garcia Marquez's bestseller about unrequited love; the director previously helmed such crowd-pleasers as Four Weddings and a Funeral and the fourth Potter; it even has Oscar winner Javier Bardem in the lead.

Yet what should have been a succulent cinematic morsel ends up as something you wouldn't serve to the dog. From the inch-thick old-age make-up slathered over the actors to the risible dialogue and chew-the-scenery acting, Newell's melodrama makes Acorn Antiques look like No Country for Old Men. It's not even bad in a comically entertaining way; it's simply bad