This is a pretty solid World War II movie, a belated followup to the very successful (and, yes, better) "The Guns Of Navarone." This time a force, mostly British soldiers but led by a young American colonel (Harrison Ford) is sent over to Yugoslavia to blow up a bridge the Nazis use. In addition, two other Brits (Robert Shaw and Edward Fox) go along on another assignment to kill a double agent. Well, half of the team is shot down before they even reach their destination as their airplane is crippled. They are killed in air-fire or upon landing on the ground. That leaves just a small group, the above-mentioned stars of the movie plus an addition, Carl Weathers (of "Rocky" fame) picked up on the ground, and the double-agent (well-played by Franco Nero) who is assigned to go with them after he is "cleared" of charges.

Anway, this re-assembled team goes on to complete their mission, or at least attempt to and are thwarted numerous times by sabotage. I won't give away the ending.

Overall, a good story and definitely worth a rental and possibly a purchase. The DVD transfer was a bit grainy at first but got better as the film went along.....as the story did.

Two of the men who blew up those two formidable artillery pieces looking out over the Aegean in The Guns Of Navarone are back in Force 10 From Navarone. From the blue Aegean Sea to the nasty back alley Balkan partisan war in Yugoslavia, the characters played by Gregory Peck and David Niven now played by Robert Shaw and Edward Fox are sent back into the fight on another undercover mission. Or on a pair of them.

This time they're joined by Americans Harrison Ford and Carl Weathers on the team. And the boys have two missions to accomplish. Ford and Weathers have to get a bridge blown up so the Germans can't move heavy concentrations of troops. Colonel Alan Badel of the partisans has some limited forces at his disposal to stop them if they don't. But there's also an agent in the partisan camp and that's Shaw's job, to kill the traitor.

If you remember The Guns Of Navarone best try and put it out of your mind because this film isn't nearly as good. If you remember that film, Gregory Peck's character was that of a mountain climber and his part in that mission was to get that team up the steep face of a cliff where the Germans wouldn't be looking. He was not a trained assassin as Shaw is. But I'm guessing the screenplay authors forgot that little detail when they wrote this film.

The Sixties and Seventies were the decade when black players began to get all kinds of roles and stopped being in the stereotyped parts that they had been relegated to before. In fact though in some cases they were shoehorned into situations that just wouldn't have applied. Such is the case for Carl Weathers who there is no way a black man would have been on this kind of mission back in the day. The Armed Forces weren't even integrated until after World War II. But the script went through all kind of hoops to make sure Weathers was kept well hidden while the rest of the team blended with the surroundings.

But beyond that Force 10 From Navarone resembles one of those propagandistic films from the World War II era where the Nazis were often played as incredibly stupid. It most resembles that Errol Flynn action film Desperate Journey, one of the dumber A films to come out from that era.

Harrison Ford was fresh from his breakthrough starring role as Han Solo in Star Wars and I guess this was kind of training for his later Indiana Jones films. But Force 10 From Navarone doesn't have the color and élan of any Indiana Jones pulp film. The force was not with this movie.

I admit to never having seen the original GUNS OF NAVARONE, but I can report that this underrated sequel is a strong addition to the glut of 1970s-era WW2 movies that were all the rage at the time. These films were often similar to the wave of Hollywood disaster flicks also being made at the time, with expansive budgets big enough to do the stories justice, and ensemble casts of familiar faces.

FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE stars a fresh-faced Harrison Ford, straight off the success of STAR WARS. He's a man with a mission to blow up a bridge in Yugoslavia, and he has a bunch of assorted characters helping him. Two of these are Robert Shaw and Edward Fox, playing old timers. Fox and Shaw seemed to be ubiquitous in genre cinema in the 1970s and they both give assured, confident turns.

The supporting players turn out to be just as interesting. Barbara Bach is here and as alluring as ever and so is her Bond co-star Richard Kiel as a hulking Partisan fighter. Italian leading man Franco Nero bags an interesting part and gets plenty of screen time. Philip Latham, the butler Klove in Dracula: PRINCE OF DARKNESS, plays the guy who sends the chaps off on their mission at the outset, while Michael Byrne and Michael Sheard play Nazis as usual. Best of the bunch is Carl Weathers, hot off the success of ROCKY, excellent as the youthful, gung ho soldier.

The plot of FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE is nothing special; find a traitor, blow up a bridge, you've seen it all before countless times. But the execution is superior. The film is packed with action and special effects which stand the test of time. Director Guy Hamilton does a grand job of the material and elicits likable performances from all of the major players. This is the type of film I caught on Sunday afternoon television but would love to add to my collection one day.