From the director that brought us AVP: Alien vs. Predator and Resident Evil, Paul W. S. Anderson now presents cinemagoers with his new feature film set in 79 A.D., Pompeii. The film tells the epic story of Milo the gladiator and his true love Cassia, the beautiful daughter of a wealthy merchant. As Mount Vesuvius erupts, destroying the once great city, Milo must fight his way through unstoppable opponents in order to reunite with his beloved. If this short description isn’t enough to put you off, there’s plenty more that will.
The film begins with the burning fires and destruction of the homeland of the story’s protagonist. After witnessing the death of his own parents, the young boy escapes shortly before becoming enslaved. Many years later, viewers are met with the older, more rugged Kit Harington, an actor most familiar as the fan favoured Jon Snow from Game of Thrones. The film begins as a simple but somewhat enjoyable gladiator piece that, although unoriginal, holds an anticipating future. Unfortunately, it’s not long before the story ‘erupts’ with numerous cliches.
During its running time of 105 minutes, there are many, many factors of Pompeii that drag it down as a whole, not the least of which being its extremely redundant storyline. Disadvantaged boy meets privileged girl, the two fall madly and swiftly in love, girl defies social status in exchange for a life of happiness, a complication is introduced resulting in one of two obvious outcomes. Romeo & Juliet, Titanic and almost every romantic Disney film are all prime examples of this very storyline and sadly, Pompeii is just another addition to this extremely old fashioned trend.
One of Pompeii’s more solid aspects showcases itself through the technology that it uses. The many CGI scenes depict great detail of destruction and chaos, however this is shadowed by poor camera work and obvious 3D moments that look incongruous when watching the film without third dimensional visuals. High angle camera shots often leave characters looking out of place and just look incorrect. Within the many combat scenes is also where this film fails. Multiple takes, almost to the point where every punch, kick and swing of a sword is separated by a new angle, is exceedingly distracting and appears constructed. Within a film that focuses heavily on combat, this is disappointing.
Overall Pompeii somewhat feels like two stories. Beginning as a simple gladiator film and then introducing the disaster element of Mount Vesuvius, it feels forced and results in an explosion of horrible cliches. It becomes more Gladiator meets 2012, rather than the deeply moving and thought provoking epic that it attempts to be. Worst of all is that it seems there is almost no attempt whatsoever to be creative through the storytelling and from very early on viewers can predict the outcome of the film.
For not the impressive visual effects and the superb acting by Harington, Pompeii would merely be a combination of embarrassing cliches, historical inaccuracies and an absolutely ludicrous scene where a certain supporting character manages to snap a sword in half, while it currently resides within his own torso and then walk away… Really?
