Pompeii (*½)
Directed
by: Paul W. S. Anderson
Starring:
Kit Harrington, Emily Browning, Carrie-Anne Moss, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje,
Jessica Lucas, Jared Harris, Kiefer Sutherland
Seen:
Ferbuary 21st 2014
*½
Out of ****
If
you’re going to make a disaster movie about the volcanic eruption of Pompeii in
79AD, I would suggest you put more actual volcanic eruption into the movie than
approximately three blink-and-you-might-miss-them scenes. Granted, they look
really spectacular when on screen, but I was expecting much more of the
mountain exploding, and much less of debris just falling down on the city – at
the very least I wanted more panning shots of the mountain exploding with the
viewer given the chance to follow debris to where it falls. Also, if you’re
going to try to add some story to your volcano disaster movie, try to be less
blatant at ripping off Gladiator. And one last hypothetical: if you’re going to
make a supposedly good looking disaster movie, dial the lights up a bit, I spent
a significant time of the movie trying to figure out what I’m seeing in the
darkness (I admit this may be the cinema’s error, could be, but I doubt it).
In
62AD, a legion of Romans under the command of the seriously bad Corvus
(Sutherland) wipe out a Celtic tribe famous for their horse wrangling/whispering,
with only one survivor, Milo, a little boy. Milo is taken into custody, and is
trained as a gladiator who quickly builds up a reputation. He is known to
crowds as the Spaniard… (no, that’s Gladiator) the Celt (Harrington). He
is a talented and quick fighter, not in it for the grandeur (much like the
Spaniard, again). A slave master notices him and purchases him to take him to
Pompeii. En route they are passed by the carriage of Cassia (Browning) and as
the carriage passes, a horse pulling it is injured. The Celt is a horse
specialist, and when he helps, he leaves Cassia with a good impression.
Milo
arrives at the gladiator academy where he picks up a short-lived problem with
the current champion, Atticus (Akinnuoye-Agbaje), a gladiator close to winning
enough fights to be released. Atticus, like Djimon Hounsou’s Juba in Gladiator,
is a black gladiator who has little wooden figurines in his cell, teams up with
the new white guy, and greatly assists him in his mission. Milo’s life-long
mission is to find and kill Corvus, and his gladiatorial exploits give him the
opportunity to get close. He also comes into contact with Cassia and her
parents, Severus (Harris) and Aurelia (Moss), who Corvus bullies into giving up
their daughter’s hand in marriage. All this transpires as the mountain starts
to endanger the city, and the movie breaks down into a fight-the-bad-guy/save-yourself
race.
The
actors have templates to work from in the form of Ridley Scott’s Gladiator, but
they don’t pull it off. The acting is caricature-like or somehow uninvolved. Harrington
and Browning might have a love story arc, but their chemistry is about as fresh
as Pompeii’s ash-fossils, and just a bit less jarring than their wooden acting.
Sutherland, Harris, and Moss all seem to be in a drug induced stupor, probably
wondering what they’re doing in this movie, with Sutherland at times seeming
like he could be enjoying this. Only Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje brings some
gravitas to his role, and I enjoyed his upstanding character.
Pompeii
is a real mess from start to finish, and even though it looks good, the focus
is often not where I would have wanted it to be. The love story, even though it
is hinted at near the start, still suddenly happens out of thin air. Too bad
more good looking volcanic eruption scenery didn’t happen out of thin air...
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