Pompeii

"Pompeii" is cheesy and okay. Just okay. The special effects are good enough, and the cast is very good, so it could have been a much better film than it is. Ooooh well.

Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje stood out for me as Atticus a noble, undefeated gladiator. I couldn't help but think that this guy should be a bigger star, and that perhaps his difficult name stood in his way. Kit Harington is charismatic and believable as Milo, a sensitive, horse- loving Celt who is forced to fight as a gladiator. He charms Cassia, a rich Roman girl (Emily Browning) and their love is believable. Kiefer Sutherland is an evil Roman Senator. Sutherland camps it up, doing a Boris Karloff imitation throughout the film. Not sure why he picked Karloff; perhaps just to see if anyone would notice. Sasha Roiz, who is from Israel, has a face, head and hair right off of a Roman mosaic, and he's good as yet another sadistic Roman officer, Sutherland's right-hand man.

This movie is obviously thrown together with little thought or heart, and it's a shame that more was not done with it. There's a scene where Milo and Cassia escape on horseback. That scene could have been classic – you've got a handsome slave who faces nothing but death in the arena, a beautiful maiden being menaced by a predatory Roman senator, and a nighttime escape on a gorgeous white horse: so much to work with! Instead their escape is just plopped on screen with no artistry at all. You're watching a rehearsal, not a real movie.

Special effects include aerial views of ancient Pompeii, earthquakes, cracking villas, sinkholes, volcanic eruption, and a tsunami. These are all okay, but I bet you could see equally good footage, if not better, on televised nature documentaries. There is lots of gladiatorial combat. I'm not qualified to judge these scenes. I usually squint my eyes and grimace throughout them and I have no idea how accurate they are. Somehow the consistency with which Milo and Atticus are able to defeat many more, and better armored opponents didn't convince me.

While watching this movie I couldn't help but reflect on Cecil-B- Demille-style sword and sandal movies from the fifties and early sixties. Those movies had special effects, but they also focused on gripping storytelling, larger than life stars like Charlton Heston, Yul Brynner, and Richard Burton, and they had some larger point. Even without the CGI, those movies were often more satisfying than more recent films who sink everything in special effects and ignore more old fashioned storytelling craft.

Hollywood deals with an ancient catastrophe.

The above phrase contains all one needs to be aware with regards to Pompeii. Brilliant and breathtaking spectacle marred by superficial storyline.

We live the last days of Pompeii leading to the eruption of Vesuvius. A slave arrives in town in order to fight for his life as part of a spectacle for a senator from Rome. He befriends another gladiator and the daughter of the town's governor falls for him.

On the one hand, a great job has been done to escalate the audiences tension as we await for Armageddon to hit and the visual climax does not disappoint. The effects are spectacular and the destruction is displayed to its full core.

Sadly, whilst these men who were treated like animals and were an object of sport for their slave owners had a chance to escape they put everything to jeopardy for a girl crush who was also part of the system that oppressed them. Had this been presented from the angle of a friendship between two men that were to fight one another to death it would have some resonance but for some cheesy romance it proved a major anticlimax in the otherwise impressive high point leading to sheer indifference as to whether any of them survived or not.

You can take this movie from two different sides.

As somebody who is very much interested in history and geography and has studied both for many years, this movie is obviously full of mistakes and wrong stereotypes. It is almost as inaccurate as the "Spartacus" series. And this is never an original movie. We have all watched movies with very similar story lines about the evil Romans who want to control everything, the poor gladiators who stand up against them and the forbidden love between a rich young woman and a foreign slave. I can understand why many people are rating this film down. If you really want to watch a sophisticated movie about that time, go for the classic "Ben- Hur".

What I think is strange is that all these stereotypes were highly predictable from the trailers only. I am asking myself why people even went to watch this movie if they were going to hate it for the reasons mentioned above. Some people just want to bash a movie and seem to have a very sad life if they waste their time watching movie they dislike so much.

I went to watch the movie for something different. I wanted to watch a colourful movie with impressive sets and costumes and stunning 3D effects of an exploding volcano. I was eager to watch a fast pace flick with a lot of fighting scenes, some tension here and there and maybe a few love scenes with beautiful actresses. And I exactly got that.

In addition to this, the acting was just good enough and included a few interesting characters. I really liked Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje and Jessica Lucas in this film even though they played stereotypical characters and could have had more screening time. If you are going to watch this movie for Carrie-Anne Moss or Kiefer Sutherland, please do not. They have been much better in other movies in the past.

In the end, it all depends on you. If you want to watch an original and profound movie and learn something about the Roman Empire, just forget it. If you want to watch a effect ridden action adventure, you are going to like this. It is not the movie of the year but I surely had a great time watching it.

In 79 A.D., a Celtic tribe of horsemen is slaughtered by the Roman Senator Corvus (Kiefer Sutherland), his right-hand man Proculus (Sasha Roiz) and their army. The boy Milo is the only survivor that is captured later and sold as slave. Seventeen years later, the slave Milo (Kit Harington) turns into an invincible gladiator in a province and is brought to Pompeii to participate in the games in the arena. While walking to Pompeii, the noble Cassia (Emily Browning) and her chaperone Ariadne (Jessica Lucas) cross with the path of the slaves and Cassia is fascinated by Milo. He shares the cell of Atticus (Adewale Akinnuoye- Agbaje), who is near to get his freedom depending on winning his last fight. Meanwhile Cassia meets her parents Severus (Jared Harris) and Aurelia (Carrie-Anne Moss) and learns that she has been betrothed to the corrupt Senator Corvus that is pressing her parents to marry her. During the games, the Mount Vesuvius erupts and Milos and his friend Atticus succeed to escape from the arena. But Milo wants to save his beloved Cassia in the middle of the chaos and the Romans.

"Pompeii" is a full of action and dull romance in the tragic environment of the last days of Pompeii. Disaster movies were popular in the 70's ("Airport", "The Towering Inferno", and "Earthquake" among others) and Paul W.S. Anderson returns to the genre after "Titanic". The entertaining story is silly with poor lines and dialogs, but never boring. Kit Harington, the "Jon Snow" from "Games of Thrones", makes it worth to see at least on DVD. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Pompeia" ("Pompeii")

I think most peoples and my main issue with the film is the subject matter. Everyone has seen the events of pompeii on screen many times and hence the plot and ending are no surprise, so we must be entertained by only the visuals and some sort of love story. The acting and directing were mostly fine. Kit Harrington and Emily Browning were passable and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje put in a noteworthy performance. The visuals and effects were by far the best aspect and kept the film very watchable and enjoyable to an extent throughout. The script was poor and most of the usual disaster movie clichés appeared at some point or other but in no way was it as awful as in say, 2012. Overall its probably not something to see at the cinema, but probably worth a watch on DVD or TV at some point. 5/10