There have been approximately 60 different films & Television plays,besides the classic Opera of this tale of a sex mad girl and her hapless soldier lover. This story has been done so many times, in various ways.Vicente Aranda directs Joaquin Jorda's screenplay adaptation of Prosper Merimee's classic novel & play.This is the story ONLY of Bizet's opera CarmenPas Vega is an exciting Carmen,full of passion & the ability to drive simple men to do terrible tragic things. Leonardo Sbaraglio is the hapless soldier who is ensnared into Carmen's poisonous web & led to doing bad things.Jay Benedict is the author Prosper who tells this tale.There is not much action, BUT there are some very hot sex scenes.In fact this is almost an NC-17 film.since I have seen this tale so often in so many guises I was not overly impressed.It is a very well made film & will be of interest to those that may not know of it,My not overly enthusiastic review also could be that I miss the fantastic Opera score by Bizet.See this as you may like it more than I did.Ratings *** (out of 4) 82 points (out of 100) IMDb 7 (out of 10)

Carmen is a prostitute that lives seducing and stealing soldiers of the Spanish army; she is, without any doubt, the best femme fatale at the moment. When a man resist her charming attentions, she decides to do everything to destroy him. At the end, he falls in her web and he will be forced to make all the things he ever hated only for being with Carmen. Despite Paz Vega is very beautiful, she doesn't seem a gypsy (as Carmen is) and neither her acting nor Sbaraglia's are good. The story results very boring, and, in most moments, it is very absurd, while intending to appear truthful. in the same way are the scenarios and the Special Effects, despite not being but they are not but acceptable, and too much artificial for a historic film as it is. To sum up, boring and bad, with a very absurd development, there are much betters thing to watch.

Another pretentious film from Vicente Aranda. If "Juana la loca" shinned of the same, at least its quality was superior (mainly thanks to the great performance of Pilar López de Ayala), but "Carmen" is boring and full of topics (ardent brunette with a dagger in the stocking, poor man dragged to madness due to passion, Sierra Nevada gangs, "toreros",...)Obviously Paz Vega is a pretty woman, but about its talent there're more doubts, and Sbaraglia role is so stupid that results almost incredible. The script is weak and and Aranda's presumptuous character influences the entire film. With these ingredients the result could not be good.Not the worst film I've seen, but a complete failure, in my opinion.

Another bad spanish picture. This is very baaaad. I only save the photography and the music of José Nieto. The rest of the film is the worst I've seen in years. Paz Vega is horrible. Don't see it.