The central pair's shattering, once-in-a-lifetime passion cries out for more urgency and emotional power.

Elaborate visual mounting and iconographic placement of the romantic leads are the movie's preoccupation, with the overthrow of Batista merely providing local color.

Director Sydney Pollack and star Robert Redford have lost their normally dependable quality touch as they slog through a notably uncompelling $45 million-plus tale of a gringo caught up in the Cuban revolution.

This is simply an overwhelmingly dumb and boring. [Full review in Spanish]