I struggle to understand how anyone can give this film more than (at most) two stars. The texts the actors have to speak are amongst the most stilted I have ever heard in a film (and I've seen a few shockers). Not only that, very little happens. There is no real story, none of the characters attract our sympathy in the slightest. And, as another reviewer has pointed out, stilted passages (which appear to be copied from slightly out-of-date guide books) are spoken by characters who appear here and there to give us some predigested geographical and historical information while the Acropolis, the Sphinx, Hagia Sophia etc. flit by.<br /><br />You may a better idea of what I mean if I mention (spoiler!) that the dramatic high point of the film occurs when we wonder if a small dog attached to a boat by its lead will get dragged into the water as the boat sways to and fro.<br /><br />Could it be that the bomb (sorry, another spoiler) at the end of the film is a cinematic metaphor for "bored to death"?