Director: Paul W.S. Anderson
Cast: Kit Harrington, Emily Browning, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Carrie-Ann Moss, Kiefer Sutherland
Story: The son of Celtic warriors witnesses his parents cut down by invading Roman soldiers and he becomes a slave, later a gladiator. Known as the Celt, he becomes a popular champion and is taken to Pompeii to compete. But it’s volcano day!
Review: Let’s look at the good ingredients mixed in to this film. A well known historical event that hasn’t been brought to modern audiences yet, with a special effects budget big enough to do it justice. Both the disaster genre and sword and sandal genre are popular money makers. A simple emotional core to give the movie weight. A score of popular up and coming actors and old favourites. What the hell could go wrong.
Oh. You gave it to Paul W.S. Anderson. The genius behind such clunkers as Aliens vs Predator, The Three Musketeers and the Resident Evil series. In all seriousness, why does this guy keep getting work? He can’t still be getting work off the success of Mortal Kombat. The meagre scrapings his films get in at the box office can be credited to the familiar franchises he leeches onto. Pompeii is not one of his best efforts. Not quite as mind-numbingly awful as Pandorum but still kinda…crummy.
There is a good cast assembled here and it’s a shame to see them squandered on a director who doesn’t work with them. Kit Harrington is in the lead, making his first foray into the big screen as a headliner. Amazingly his character has less emotional range than Jon Snow and the poor guy has nothing he can do with it. Emily Browning has been one to watch ever since A Series of Unfortunate Events but someone surgically removed all her charm and talent prior to filming. Everyone in the movie acts as though they’re at the first read through of the script and are still trying to remember everyone’s names. Kiefer Sutherland isn’t on his A game but at least he seems to be having fun.
You’d be remiss to hold the actors at fault for this one, and the script and direction have much, much more to answer for. Not only does the script pull out every cliche under the sun but it does it badly. There’s a forced love story at the center of proceedings but the characters (Harrington and Browning) literally share only two short scenes together before deciding that they’re madly in love and are willing to sacrifice their lives for each other (not that any of this is said out loud for the audience, but it’s the only way to explain their behavior in the latter half of the movie). There’s also a revenge plot to start the movie out and give the hero a reason to try and kill the designated bad guy, but the audience is again left to fill in the blanks.
Emily Browning’s character is the increasingly common and increasingly contrived period piece girl who shocks her elders with her modern thinking ways. And by modern thinking that’s by today’s standards, not the expectations of the time. Much like Alice in Alice in Wonderland and Elizabeth Swan in Pirates of the Caribbean she finds the fashions and social expectations of the day ridiculous and strives to be more independent and lead her own life. She even has a sassy black friend. It really is impossible to take a character like this seriously.
End of the day, when you buy a ticket to see a movie called Pompeii you really in it for the volcano. And you get the volcano. There’s a ridiculous number of shots of the peak looming over the city, somehow having moved geographically closer than it is in real life. The number of ominous shots of Vesuvius becomes laughable, sometimes you get one following another. When lava hits the fan some of the effects are nice, but the about of billowing dust clouds obscures much of the action.
Anyone looking for historical accuracy should steer clear. Much of the death following the eruption of Vesuvius has been attributed to the extreme heat and possibly the layers of ash. This movie puts the focus on rocky fireballs (that have extraordinary accuracy of picking out bad guys), tidal waves and chariot races through the the streets. Early in the film there are some good shots of the city in motion, but the action stays in doors for most of the movie.
Rating: THREE out of TEN
