Pompei, ieri, oggi, domani

An Italian TV miniseries chronicling the life and times of Roman citizens in the brief-run up to Mount Vesuvius erupting. This miniseries is bookended by an absolutely pointless modern-day scenario involving a couple of researchers who fall in love and go to bed together. Parallels are drawn between ancient and modern life but seriously, this junk just needed ejecting in order to focus on the historical stuff.

Sadly, TV viewers will have been spoilt by the quality of TV'S ROME which makes POMPEII look like amateur hour by comparison. And, indeed, POMPEII is cheesy indeed; the version I watched has been dubbed into English from the original Italian, dubbed too by the most monotonous and stilted dialogue actors ever. It makes the whole effort a near unwatchable mess, and something impossible to take seriously.

Not that the story is good to begin with. The writers make the error of having their historical characters act in completely modern ways which would have been alien to the times. Thus Christian characters are portrayed ultra-sympathetically as are the female characters. The running time is padded out with boring love stories, ultra-cheesy gladiator scenes, and lots of back and forth stuff. The acting is bad, with the main character a gladiator who looks like a male model off the cover of a Mills & Boon book; wooden isn't the word. The cast is Italian with a couple of familiar faces (like Tomas Arana from THE BOURNE SUPREMACY) mixed in. When the volcano finally erupts in the second episode, the viewer is subjected to many dodgy CGI effects which definitely aren't worth the wait.