Highly Overrated But Still Good

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

If you are wondering whether you should see this movie or not, I think you should see it. It may be historical inaccurate but who depends on Hollywood to learn history?Making a movie about the ancient city of Pompeii is difficult because everyone already knows what happened. The brute power of Nature (although it didn't exactly happen that way) is greatly portrayed by the technology available in Hollywood today; however, I don't think this is the movie's biggest asset.What I enjoyed the most is that the sword fighting sequences weren't overdeveloped by a martial arts expert and they are realistic. The love story develops in a natural way (who never knew someone interesting in the most unusual of places?!) and the end may indeed surprise some, while making completely sense.

This movie is what happens when you are trying to create Gladiator and Titanic, but if the Titanic was sinking slowly and nobody was dying for it, Gladiator was ornamental, John Snow looked uninteresting, the hottest lady around is that lady from Sucker Punch, Jack Bauer was evil and bored and Killer Croc... well, he kept his standards, while Trinity looks bored.For history fans, it is offensive over the limits. For science fans, it is terrible. For physicists it breaks every rule known. For toxicologists is laughable. For love story fans, it is really boring. For action fans it is overly long and terribly edited. For CGI fans it is terrible. For practical effects fans... Pfft. Keep dreaming. It offers nothing to anyone. Even at the end you just want it to end before you actually take your life out of boredom. (I wanted it to end around 45 minutes earlier, but beggars can be choosers)Dull at its finest. Cliché to a maximum level. They tried to make it a safe movie and ended doing a boring mess. I give it a point because my fan fiction about Trinity giving birth the dancer from sucker punch, which marries Jon Snow, whose best buddy is Killer Croc, While Jack Bauer tries to conquer Westeros is a million times better after watching this abomination.

I've never been the biggest fan of disaster movies but I gave this film a chance to see if it could change my mind but no this film is pretty terrible. The premise is set in old Roman times in the town of Pompeii a gladiator is trying to survive a massive volcano while trying to get justice for his family. Kit Harrington who plays Jon snow on game of thrones is the main character in this film and he is pretty bad. There is absolutely no emotion to his performance which makes it hard to care about him or any of the situations he is put into. He isn't given a lot to work with to be honest as his character is written to be really lifeless and cliché when it comes to pretty much every situation. The one and only character I liked in this film was his gladiator ally played by Adewale akinnuoye-agbaje, he was the only person I cared about and he easily gave the best performance in this film which made him the most fun to watch. Emily Browning plays Harringtons love interest in this film and her character has nothing about her, I didn't buy there romance at all and it made me not care about her at all. Kiefer Sutherland is the bad guy in this film and my goodness he is absolutely awful in this film, one of the most over the top cheesy performances I think I have ever seen in any film. He just overdoes everything in this film and you just end up laughing at him for this film. Carrie Ann moss and Jared Harris are in this film but are completely wasted and really anybody could have played there roles in this film. The story in this film is completely paper thin and there is nothing to it. You won't care about the romance at all which means you won't care about anything until the end and by then it doesn't have any decent payoff. The script has some truly awful dialogue in it that usually just ends up making you laugh or sigh in disbelief by just how dull or ridiculous it is. The style of the film too its credit does have some fun over the top destruction scenes towards the end of the film. But this film is littered with truly awful CGI and truly awful action scenes, clearly the budget for this film was not big enough because pretty much every effect look awful in this film. For some reason during the action scenes after every hit and it is truly jarring to watch. Overall this film is an avoid at all cost type of film, do something better with your time then this mess of a film.

Pompeii is just another one of your average swords-and-sandals adventure. But is the difference here? There is a giant volcano that plays a vital role in the story. That is because this film is inspired by the final days of the historical Roman city Pompeii before it was gravely devastated by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. This bombastic blend of romance, disaster, and gladiator battles is helmed by director Paul W. S. Anderson following his financial success of the 'Resident Evil' series. It is a fantastic treat from visual standpoint. But from a writing standpoint, it is a hot mess. Lacking in originality and crippled by a charmless script, this historical fails to scale the heights above a dumb popcorn flick, and settles for an unremarkable hack-and-slash adventure that only accounts for half of the excitement it is intended to be. In short, it stands as just another one of your noisy guilty pleasure actioners. Set in 79 A.D., this film centers on Milo (played by Kit Harrington), a Roman slave scarred by the slaying of his mother as a young boy, who escapes from slavery to compete in the gladiator wars in the city of Pompeii, pitted along side fellow Roman slave Atticus (played by Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) who's intent on killing him to garner his freedom. Upon his escape, he meets the eyes of the beautiful Cassia (played by Emily Browning) who is sadly set to marry the ruthless Roman Senator Corvus (played by Kiefer Sutherland), the man responsible for his mother's death. When the towering Mount Vesuvius erupts with no warning, the entire city of Pompeii is plunged into wide scale chaos. In the amidst of escaping through the shower volcanic fireballs, Milo must race to find Cassia who is trapped inside the debris before it is too late.If you picture Ridley Scott's 'Gladiator' and fuse it with a disaster flick such as 'Volcano' or 'Dante's Peak', that is an accurate portrait of this historical epic is. If there is anything missing, it maybe just a pinch of 'Titanic' in the mix. After all, this movie does follow a love story in the amidst of an impending doom. But the ultimate question is: Is this movie exciting? For a disaster flick, it has its moments of excitement, most of which are granted in the final third during the volcanic eruption. But that is before the hour mark when the movie spends its time introducing the characters and treating us to a series of intense, but lousily edited gladiator battles. Anderson exhibits these sequences using an unfavorable gimmick involving quick cuts in which he cuts the camera nearly every time someone is slashed and beaten with a sword or some bladed weapon. Whether or not the reason behind this is to shield the graphic details to score a PG-13 rating, it tears away the excitement. The real excitement does not begin until the eruption of Mount Vesuvius which marks the film's climax. Anderson greatly composites this sequence with a prolonged string of CGI explosions and flashy special effects that effectively stage the harrowing destruction of the Ancient city. The body count is enormously high, and the special effects bring a helping hand to showcasing the grim atmosphere of this horrifying disaster. Sadly, this is about the only chunk of compulsion Anderson has to offer here. The movie is sorely depraved of decent performances from its cast. This includes Kit Harrington who's brought great appeal as Jon Snow in the TV series 'Game of Thrones', but here his performance is rather stoic. The worst can certainly be said for Kiefer Sutherland who neglects an authentic portrayal of a ruthless Roman senator and instead settles for a hammy performance that comes off more comical than realistic. While it is definitely unreasonable to anticipate something like Joaquin Phoenix's performance in 'Gladiator', Sutherland should been much better than what he delivers here.Pompeii is a bombastic blend of romance, disaster, and gladiator battles that falls short of flair and compulsion, and fails to level up to anything above a surface level popcorn actioner. There is some excitement to be experience here, but unfortunately it all comes in small separate chunks. There is a big, loud volcanic eruption here, but the movie itself is certainly no eruption itself.