Released: February 2014
Director: Paul W.S. Anderson
Run Time: 105 Minutes
Rated: PG-13
Cast:
Kit Harington: Milo
Kiefer Sutherland: Corvus
Carrie-Anne Moss: Aurelia
Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje: Atticus
Jared Harris: Severus
I love gladiator movies like Spartacus, Ben-Hur, and well……..Gladiator. I also like disaster movies such as Dante’s Peak, Volcano, and 2012. So, what happens when you combine the two? You get Pompeii. This is not the first piece of fiction dealing with the city. Some books and movies were made specifically about Pompeii. The most famous of which is The Last Days of Pompeii. That one started out as a book and was adapted for film multiple times. Director Paul W.S. Anderson was given the opportunity to create a film based around the events of the Mount Vesuvius eruption of 79 AD. Historically, this particular eruption was one of the most destructive and catastrophic disasters in European history. Trying to create a movie around such an event is tricky, since anyone familiar with history already knows the outcome. So, making a movie specifically about Pompeii wasn’t really in the cards. So, they came up with a sort of Gladiator-style spectacle and story that led up to the eruption. The result is a movie that suffers an identity crisis. Is it trying to be a gladiator epic or a disaster movie?
Pompeii opens in 62 AD as a squad of Roman soldiers led by general Corvus put down a Celtic rebellion in Britannia. Only one survived: Milo. Sold into slavery as a child, Milo grows up to become a vicious gladiator. Later, he’s brought to Pompeii with other gladiators to fight for the entertainment of now-Roman Senator Corvus, who has arrived to see if the city is worth investing in. Milo captures the eye of Cassia, the daughter of Pompeii’s mayor, Severus. Little does Milo know that Corvus has also taken an interest in Cassia. At this point, the story just serves to move the film from one action set-piece to another, up to and including the volcanic eruption. It’s really hard to tell what kind of movie Pompeii wanted to be. Half of the movie wants to be a gladiator epic, and the other half: a disaster movie. The combination of the two doesn’t quite work as well as Anderson hoped, especially in its 105 minute run time. It doesn’t really leave room for character development, just lots of action. Paul W.S. Anderson knows his way around an action movie, and he doesn’t really disappoint here. I’ll get to that a little later.
So, what went wrong? First of all, let’s talk about the cast. Kit Harington of Game of Thrones fame lands the lead role of Milo The Gladiator. It seems he’s brought his grumpiness and bad temperament from Game of Thrones with him. He’s not bad, he’s certainly can handle a sword or two. He’s just not given enough room to develop as a hero. Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje plays Atticus, the gladiator who gets to fight one more time before becoming a free man. I can see Agbaje doing that. I can even see Carrie-Anne Moss as Roman nobility. What I can’t see is Kiefer Sutherland as Corvus. Don’t get me wrong, Kiefer Sutherland is a fantastic actor, rivaling his own father at times. He was terribly miscast here. Looking at his filmography, he’s not cut out to play a corrupt Roman leader. He’s the mustache-twirling villain of the film. Honestly, he comes off across as a bit cartoon-ish. I don’t know if it’s because he’s out of his depth, or the character was so poorly written, but Corvus is not a good villain.
The action is where the film shines. We’ve got some good sword fights and potential gladiator epicness, but it isn’t fully realized. We do get to see what’s going on, most of the time. We can thank Paul W.S. Anderson not overusing the shaky-cam technique. The real spectacle of Pompeii begins when Vesuvius erupts. Wow. The views of the volcano, even before it erupts are spectacular. We do get to see a rare glimpse inside the volcano when it starts to act up. I honestly haven’t really seen that in a volcano movie before. When it explodes, all hell breaks loose, and that’s where the movie kicks into high gear. The visual effects are simply astounding.
For those of you who don’t know, Pompeii was destroyed in a cataclysmic eruption in 79 AD. The reason we know for sure that the volcano erupted came from the writings of Pliny The Younger, who was a Roman magistrate and author. He actually witnessed the eruption 22 miles away from the mountain. Okay, Spoiler Alert: The volcano erupted and people died. Not well, either. They suffocated, burned and basically everything in between during the eruption. The way the volcano erupted basically annihilated everything in its path, covering everything in mud and ash. We have pictures of plaster-shaped people who were buried. The people who were killed left impressions in the ash. We learned that when the city was rediscovered in 1599. More of it was uncovered in 1748. People of all ages were found to have been buried. 11,000 people died in Pompeii during those days, and 5,000 more in a nearby city at the same time. So, the history surrounding Pompeii is actually very interesting. Because of Pliny The Younger, we have a much greater understanding of what happened during those last few days.
When all is said and done, Pompeii isn’t a bad movie. It really isn’t. It’s a decent film that just failed to decide what it wanted to be when it grew up. Kiefer Sutherland was laughable bad in this one and the rest of the cast just failed to really come together. The story isn’t terrible, but it’s a mish-mash of better films. As I said earlier, the film’s real bright spot comes when the volcano blows its top, and its a non-stop ride from there. Pompeii doesn’t really bring anything new to the gladiator or disaster movie genres. It’s just…there. It’s still better than The Legend of Hercules, though. But, I don’t think that’s really hard to do. Pompeii is just mediocre. 7/10.