The Royal Hunt of the Sun

Given that Peter Shaffer's play was ripe for screen adaptation, it's surprising that this is so resolutely stagey. Concentrating almost entirely on the intimate confrontation between the Spanish conquistador Pizarro and the Inca god-king Atahualpa, which takes in issues of immortality, religious belief, and the worth of gold (Pizarro is searching for El Dorado), it unwisely ignores the material's potential for the combined spectacle of landscape and material wealth. That said, it's still quite watchable, thanks largely to the intelligence of Shaffer's original, and to strong if idiosyncratic performances from Shaw and Plummer.