"Pompeii" Review

Pompeii is not the best movie ever, but I would probably see it again.

The fact that it is very different from most disaster movies makes it very fun to watch. I am admittedly not an expert on them, but from what I have seen, they are often set in the present day with a scientist as the protagonist. There is usually a leading lady as well, and they set out to either warn people of an imminent threat, they want to study it or they want to stop it -- which was the case in "The Core."

Coming into this film, I was very curious to see how there is a film about Pompeii. It is set a couple millennia ago, so I doubt there were scientists who knew about it and tried to warn the people. There is also no way to actually stop a volcano, so it could not be about that. In fact, it is well known that Mount Vesuvius did erupt, and that the city right under it was completely covered in ash.

Instead of sticking to the same formula, the film simply tells the story of a Celtic man named Milo (Kit Harington) who is the only survivor of a genocide committed by the ruthless Roman senator, Corvus (Kiefer Sutherland). Milo was a child when this happened, and now he is a slave who fights as a gladiator.

He and a big group of other slaves go to Pompeii, a large city at the base of a volcano, to fight each other. During the time he is there, Corvus comes to watch, not knowing who Milo is.

The story is written well enough to where I found myself wanting to know what will happen. This is especially true with the relationship between Milo and Atticus (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), another gladiator who is to fight him to the death. At first, Milo is cold towards him, but their relationship changes throughout the film. It is involving in that it presents a certain curiosity as to who is going to win the fight and what is going to happen when the volcano explodes.

Though Kiefer Sutherland's voice is very distracting in an English accent -- which come to find out is natural for him -- he does a great job playing the villain. There is no disputing that he is a one-dimensional, Saturday-morning-cartoon character, but he is very entertaining to watch especially at his most vile.

The main problem with this film is there really is not a lot of set-up for what it wants to be. It starts off as a film about gladiators and politics, and it ends up being about revenge. The revenge plot is not as powerful as it should be because Milo does not announce any desire to avenge his people. There is also a hint that those in the city believe the volcano is the gods being angry, but that is not discussed enough for a certain line at the end to payoff as much as it wanted to -- though I still
thought that line was pretty cool.

Overall, I'm giving this four out of five stars. I know it has been slammed by a lot of critics with only a 27% on Rotten Tomatoes. Though I acknowledge that it is not the perfect movie, it is entertaining enough to where I would recommend it in theatres.

Content: Rated PG-13. There is fake-looking blood on swords. Stabbings are shown after they happen. One scene shows a man's bloodied back after he is whipped. There are brief glimpses of people burning in ash. There is one scene of brief sexual content in which some women are inspecting the slaves. The film never says what they are doing exactly, but I think they are buying the slaves for an evening.

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