Pompeii
Directed by: Paul W.S. Anderson
Written by: Janet Scott Batchler, Lee Batchler, Julian Fellowes, Michael Robert Johnson
Starring: Kit Harington, Carrie-Anne Moss, Emily Browning, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Jessica Lucas, Jared Harris, Joe Pingue, Kiefer Sutherland, Dylan Schombing, Rebecca Eady, Sasha Roiz, Jean Frenette
Action/Adventure/Drama/History/Romance - 105 min
Written by: Janet Scott Batchler, Lee Batchler, Julian Fellowes, Michael Robert Johnson
Starring: Kit Harington, Carrie-Anne Moss, Emily Browning, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Jessica Lucas, Jared Harris, Joe Pingue, Kiefer Sutherland, Dylan Schombing, Rebecca Eady, Sasha Roiz, Jean Frenette
Action/Adventure/Drama/History/Romance - 105 min
Calamities, both natural and man-made, are ripe for romantic revisionism. Consider events such as the Titanic sinking, an impending asteroid impact, or a volcano eruption, and most screenwriters chew on their pen thinking, “You know what would make it even better? What if a young, good looking couple were put in danger too?” The Pompeii story arrives with more ready-made cataclysm and annihilation than most other ‘based on real event’ calamities; however, perhaps the filmmakers thought they would miss out on valuable teenaged disposable income if they omitted a chiseled leading man attempting to save a princess figure he just met while dodging fire and brimstone.
Rather than show the audience Pompeii’s place in the Pax Romana, detail its population, and illuminate its geography and enterprise, director Paul W.S. Anderson saddles us with Gladiator and Titanic storyboards woven together into a collage of historical disaster fiction. The character escorting us in and around Pompeii is a slave turned gladiator just arrived from Britannia. Milo (Kit Harington) recalls the distinct faces of the Roman centurions who massacred his entire village 16 years prior and the memory comes in handy because guess who drops in on Pompeii right at the same time as our man arrives in town. Seems like kismet.
The stars also align to give Milo some opposite sex interest in not merely any young lady, but the daughter of Pompeii’s wealthiest merchant and mayor. Cassia (Emily Browning), following the lead of about every other character, also just arrives in Pompeii fleeing Rome from the roving eye and wandering hands of Atticus Corvus (Kiefer Sutherland). If you suspect Milo the slave and Senator/General Corvus have some previous history, say from back in Britannia, you may be just too intelligent to sit through a screening of a story this remedial.
Prior to the inevitable eruption, we are presented with a good half hour of gladiator arena butchery. Already 2014’s second film to partly take place in this setting after The Legend of Hercules, the fighting is exactly what one expects from talent and budgets noticeably inferior to the source material it is stealing from. Despite the dozens of impalements, hack jobs, and general dismemberment, this is PG-13 violence, so no blood gentlemen, let’s keep it clean.
As for the sequence of what makes Pompeii famous at all, the eruption is the reason you are burdened with that extra 3D charge in your ticket price. The rocks hurtle toward you before squashing folks on the ground, the lava flames are omnidirectional but they have a tendency of clearing blockages rudely impeding the escaping lead characters. The eruption is also a picture-perfect backdrop to settle any and all vendettas you may hold against cruel slave owners or perhaps the Roman soldiers who slaughtered your whole family. It’s an equal opportunity catastrophe.
Pompeii’s screenplay took four writers to compile including Julian Fellowes, the Academy Award winner of Gosford Park and the creator of Downton Abbey. Milo the gladiator slave barely says any words at all, Senator Corvus cackles through his threatening and scheming lines (he should be smoothing out an oily moustache at the same time), and the rest is just screaming. It is a curious detail most of the world’s worst films credit the most screenwriters. Paul W.S. Anderson, the auteur behind the Resident Evil franchise and the worst version of The Three Musketeers (2011) ever filmed, is right at home swimming in Pompeii’s destruction.
You, dear reader, would do well to avoid Pompeii, lest you come down with such a contagious case of sarcasm I contracted while watching the movie. Just move along; nothing to see here.
Rather than show the audience Pompeii’s place in the Pax Romana, detail its population, and illuminate its geography and enterprise, director Paul W.S. Anderson saddles us with Gladiator and Titanic storyboards woven together into a collage of historical disaster fiction. The character escorting us in and around Pompeii is a slave turned gladiator just arrived from Britannia. Milo (Kit Harington) recalls the distinct faces of the Roman centurions who massacred his entire village 16 years prior and the memory comes in handy because guess who drops in on Pompeii right at the same time as our man arrives in town. Seems like kismet.
The stars also align to give Milo some opposite sex interest in not merely any young lady, but the daughter of Pompeii’s wealthiest merchant and mayor. Cassia (Emily Browning), following the lead of about every other character, also just arrives in Pompeii fleeing Rome from the roving eye and wandering hands of Atticus Corvus (Kiefer Sutherland). If you suspect Milo the slave and Senator/General Corvus have some previous history, say from back in Britannia, you may be just too intelligent to sit through a screening of a story this remedial.
Prior to the inevitable eruption, we are presented with a good half hour of gladiator arena butchery. Already 2014’s second film to partly take place in this setting after The Legend of Hercules, the fighting is exactly what one expects from talent and budgets noticeably inferior to the source material it is stealing from. Despite the dozens of impalements, hack jobs, and general dismemberment, this is PG-13 violence, so no blood gentlemen, let’s keep it clean.
As for the sequence of what makes Pompeii famous at all, the eruption is the reason you are burdened with that extra 3D charge in your ticket price. The rocks hurtle toward you before squashing folks on the ground, the lava flames are omnidirectional but they have a tendency of clearing blockages rudely impeding the escaping lead characters. The eruption is also a picture-perfect backdrop to settle any and all vendettas you may hold against cruel slave owners or perhaps the Roman soldiers who slaughtered your whole family. It’s an equal opportunity catastrophe.
Pompeii’s screenplay took four writers to compile including Julian Fellowes, the Academy Award winner of Gosford Park and the creator of Downton Abbey. Milo the gladiator slave barely says any words at all, Senator Corvus cackles through his threatening and scheming lines (he should be smoothing out an oily moustache at the same time), and the rest is just screaming. It is a curious detail most of the world’s worst films credit the most screenwriters. Paul W.S. Anderson, the auteur behind the Resident Evil franchise and the worst version of The Three Musketeers (2011) ever filmed, is right at home swimming in Pompeii’s destruction.
You, dear reader, would do well to avoid Pompeii, lest you come down with such a contagious case of sarcasm I contracted while watching the movie. Just move along; nothing to see here.
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