Pompeii (Cinema Screening)

(Spoilers)

Pompeii is already the third movie of 2014 of this Greek/Roman Gladiator style movies to have been released. Before it has been 300 Rise of an Empire and The Legend of Hercules. Both of these films entertained me, 300 more so but both were very watchable – although when it came to Pompeii I had my doubts, with it only being the end of April I wondered if I could stay optimistic for a third.

Pompeii actually ended up being the most enjoyable of the three films.  It has an advantage in that it has a completely unique element to it’s plot with the events of the movie running parallel to the famous eruption of Mount Vesuvius.  Despite this the movie actually also has another few storylines running through the film and at times the eruption actually seemed like it wasn’t the main focus of the movie.  Instead we see themes of revenge, family affairs and politics almost taking the forefront. At other times though it felt like the director was unsure where to focus the attention however, the two main plot points did blend well together and made for a really enjoyable movie.  Unfortunately Pompeii isn’t anything new, what we have here is your bog standard disaster movie mixed in with your stereotypical Greek/Roman Gladiator movie.  Although saying that, those are two kinds of movies I do enjoy so putting the two together was a good move just no new ground was made for either of the genres. I was itching to get to the eruption part of the movie, but it didn’t come as quickly as I was wanting, the tension built and built but in the end I think they chose the right time to bring it into the movie, I had almost forgotten that it was going to happen as I was so engrossed in the events that were playing out!

I really enjoyed a lot of the scenes in this movie, the events in the arena were great! The numerous fight scenes and the variety of these scenes was pretty good. Also of course the scenes of the eruption were fantastic and the devastation to follow. I think my favourite scene would have to have been when the tidal wave strikes and propels one of the ships up the streets of Pompeii, it was really cool.  The action throughout was actually really good and it did continually increase, I enjoyed the final scenes with Milo pursuing Cassia on horseback and the final confrontation between hero and villain was great.  Oh and talking about the villain and this is Corvus (Kiefer Sutherland) not the volcano, he was great. The addition of a villain to this picture was vital, it added a lot and Sutherlands performance was good, you could tell he was having fun with this role and he was certainly fun to watch. Pompeii was predictable, it wasn’t particularly mind blowing but what it was was exciting.  I wasn’t bored for one minute, the makers knew it wasn’t a two and a half hour epic, so they didn’t try and make it one. For what it was Pompeii was a great watch and it delivered on every level.

BIGGEST FLAW – Possibly a confused focus

BIGGEST ACHIEVEMENT – Kiefer Sutherland’s villain was a really nice addition

Rating – 8.5/10