Film Review - Pompeii

Mountain of a Mole Hill 

Film: Pompeii (3D)

Cast: Kit Harrington, Emily Browning

Directed by: Paul W.S. Anderson

Duration: 1 hr 30 mins

Rating: * *

You don’t go to a movie with a lot of expectations from the director of the Mortal Kombat and Resident Evil franchise. It helps because Pompeii is one of those run of mill films that involves slaves, kings, Romans, special effects and a natural disaster. The story is lackluster and to add to it, the performances are no great shakes either.

Set around 79 A.D in the city of Pompeii, Milo (Kit Harrington) plays a slave turned gladiator who falls in love with Cassia (Emily Browning) who comes from a noble family.. The evil senator Corvus (Kiefer Sutherland) also has his eye on the lady and considering he is close to the Roman emperor he also wields considerable power. Milo meanwhile is looking for an escape route, which doesn’t come easy.

The climax when Mount Vesuvius erupts is the only time you want to stay awake because of some good visual effects. There is chaos all around town as fire and ash destroys the town and Milo also has to rescue his girl who is kept captive. The action scenes will put you back to sleep again and like T-1000 in Terminator 2, Corvus refuses to die and keeps popping up, no matter what.

The only good thing about Pompeii is that there won’t be a sequel.  Unless of course if they make films on the subsequent eruptions of Mount Vesuvius. 

Published in The Navhind Times on 23rd Feb 2014

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