Madonna's Malta film meets bad press

It seems that not all movies made in Malta are of the calibre of "Gladiator"... at least, not in the case of Guy Ritchie's "Swept Away", filmed here in October last year.

An article in The Sunday Express Review said that the ultimate pop diva did not seem to shine as much on the silver screen as she did in music.

It described her latest film as signalling "the end of her movie career".

"Swept Away", once called "Love, Sex, Drugs and Money", and due to be released sometime in September, was "so terrible that, even though few people have actually seen the thing, there's no doubt it's going to be bad," The Sunday Express said in a two-page spread, splashing two decades of lousy film reviews to Madonna's credit.

"Though technically a comedy, the few people unlucky enough to see 'Swept Away' at an early test screening were put off by the unpleasantness of Madonna's character and the fact that she falls passionately in love with her commie compadre after he beats her repeatedly."

The news that "Swept Away" is not exactly destined to be a blockbuster comes as no surprise as comments to this effect were already being passed by those involved in its making during filming in Malta.

Indeed, it was even rumoured that producer, director and husband Ritchie had only embarked on the project to kill time, satisfy his wife's demands and make her happy.

Cast and crew had a whale of a time on the islands and that is what it seems to have been all about...

Meanwhile, the IMDb web site said that Dreamworks and Universal were working on the follow-up to the 2000 award-winning "Gladiator" - without its original star, Russell Crowe, of course, as Maximus was killed off in the epic movie.

The sequel is intended to pick up the story 15 years later but it is not known whether the producers have any intention of returning to Fort Ricasoli to shoot it. The set had been destroyed anyway!