User reviews

You can take this movie from two different sides.

As somebody who is very much interested in history and geography and has studied both for many years, this movie is obviously full of mistakes and wrong stereotypes. It is almost as inaccurate as the "Spartacus" series. And this is never an original movie. We have all watched movies with very similar story lines about the evil Romans who want to control everything, the poor gladiators who stand up against them and the forbidden love between a rich young woman and a foreign slave. I can understand why many people are rating this film down. If you really want to watch a sophisticated movie about that time, go for the classic "Ben- Hur".

What I think is strange is that all these stereotypes were highly predictable from the trailers only. I am asking myself why people even went to watch this movie if they were going to hate it for the reasons mentioned above. Some people just want to bash a movie and seem to have a very sad life if they waste their time watching movie they dislike so much.

I went to watch the movie for something different. I wanted to watch a colourful movie with impressive sets and costumes and stunning 3D effects of an exploding volcano. I was eager to watch a fast pace flick with a lot of fighting scenes, some tension here and there and maybe a few love scenes with beautiful actresses. And I exactly got that.

In addition to this, the acting was just good enough and included a few interesting characters. I really liked Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje and Jessica Lucas in this film even though they played stereotypical characters and could have had more screening time. If you are going to watch this movie for Carrie-Anne Moss or Kiefer Sutherland, please do not. They have been much better in other movies in the past.

In the end, it all depends on you. If you want to watch an original and profound movie and learn something about the Roman Empire, just forget it. If you want to watch a effect ridden action adventure, you are going to like this. It is not the movie of the year but I surely had a great time watching it.

I think most peoples and my main issue with the film is the subject matter. Everyone has seen the events of pompeii on screen many times and hence the plot and ending are no surprise, so we must be entertained by only the visuals and some sort of love story. The acting and directing were mostly fine. Kit Harrington and Emily Browning were passable and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje put in a noteworthy performance. The visuals and effects were by far the best aspect and kept the film very watchable and enjoyable to an extent throughout. The script was poor and most of the usual disaster movie clichés appeared at some point or other but in no way was it as awful as in say, 2012. Overall its probably not something to see at the cinema, but probably worth a watch on DVD or TV at some point. 5/10

While not a classic, Pompeii is actually a pretty enjoyable disaster/action flick that I couldn't wait to see back in 2014. I remember enjoying it in cinemas and have just watch it again for the 2nd time. I really need to get around to watching the 24 minutes of cut footage as I feel several characters were highly underused, especially Carrie Ann Moss and Jessica Lucas. While the ending still kinda annoys me, I really don't think it could've ended any other way.

It's fast paced, has some great action scenes and is an overall pretty decent. Nowhere near as bad as others are making out to be. I wish Emily Browning would make more big budget movies.

The movie Pompeii was obviously thought-up and directed around the 3D effects. The plot, acting, and script must have all been after-thoughts to the 3D fireballs shooting off the screen, 3D ashes floating in front of your eyes, and the 3D objects being hurled around by tidal waves.

It was watchable, but don't be expecting a fabulous plot that you haven't seen dozens of times in other better movies. The bad writing had most of the actors come off sounding like lifeless wooden statues that would say and do very unbelievable things just to keep the story going. Everything was very predictable. So predictable, in fact, there were a couple of moments I could have sworn I did see it before!

This was a good example why I typically do no like 3D movies. Having some good 3D effects is not a valid excuse for making a bad movie!! This definitely could have been much better!

This was a complete waste fo time. Here are the main reasons:

1. The performance by the main characters was very poor and artificial. 2. The director did a bad job, as did the editor. 3. The main story is weak and uninspired. There are clichés all over the place. Dialogue is poor and boring. The whole story is completely dubious and it is hard to take the movie seriously. 4. Historically speaking, the film sacrifices the real events that occurred for the sake of extra special effects. The fact that two cities were destroyed before anything got to Pompeii is ignored completely. The 'fire rain' on Pompeii also never happened, as did the tsunami. It simply made no sense to add everything but the kitchen sink into this movie. 'The Gladiator' was fictional, but it never claimed to be anything else. This film claims to be based on real events, when it clearly isn't in the most important aspects of what happened that day. In Pompeii, people died because they inhaled the smoke, not because fire rained down on them or tsunamis washed them away. The arena (stadium) was never destroyed by the earhquake and it still stands in Pompeii to this day. Dubious to the extreme.

Overall very very poor.

Let's start with the positive: the movie looks great, the visuals and effects really work. Little else does, though. The cast acts wooden, the story is predictable and boring, borrowing many elements from Gladiator and the end is cheesy as hell. Overall a real waste of time.

I would want to say that this film feels different, yet somehow it felt familiar. The film felt different thanks to the climactic volcanic eruption, which added an extra dimension to the final act, yet in every other minor plot detail, it felt as if I've seen the act many times before. Overall, though, it is a joy to watch, despite the minor flaws throughout the film. One strong point in which I enjoy the film were the action sequences, which mostly are very practical sword fights, that turns out to be quite fun and enjoyable with the fast & swift hits. And then throughout the end, the suspense of the danger can be felt, which I attribute mostly to the decent soundtrack. Soundtracks which are supportive towards the appropriate situation is always a great thing to have. And while the visual effects were not perfect, it didn't really matter in terms of the overall experience. Yet the film is dragged down by minor flaws along the way. There was no humour in the mix, and while there is no deep emotional drama as well, at least I can still feel for the character. There are times where I felt that the scenes were not supposed to happen yet, although in the end, I could at least care about what's going to happen to these characters. And the closing scenes were too abrupt, where they could instead have added some finishing lines/quotes or maybe give some aftermath/future scenes. These minor details kind of let down what would otherwise be a solid thrilling disaster film. VERDICT: Good: Great action sequences, Decent soundtrack & suspense Bad: No humour, Lack of emotional touches, Abrupt ending, (Minor flaws) SCORE: 7.0

What a piece of crap wannabe blockbuster . If it was not by the fact I got free tickets for the premiere, I would be p***ed off to waste my money in vain. Well, my time was wasted anyway...

The plot is the epitome of stupidity: shallow characters and a predictable story made me wonder what the director was thinking. The history of Pompeii and its fate was completely ignored (I have visited Pompeii myself) - the tsunami scene was only one of the non sense historical goofs. The movie end is absolutely stupid and I was relieved it finally ended.

If you want to waste your time, this is the perfect opportunity.

Many people are out there saying it's "historically inaccurate", it's "a remade of gladiator WITH A VOLCANO!" and a very cliché film. but I'm saying it is a really good movie on it's own, considering that this IS A DISASTER MOVIE. And in many aspects this is better than 2012, Volcano, or other movies like these. For starters, there is an actual plot to the movie before the volcano erupts.

Other things I liked:

• The gladiatorial theme is well presented. You can see people who hate being a gladiator, people who are just waiting for their freedom, people who believe they are gods in the arena, and so on, and you can watch how the majority of Romans loved these shows, but some didn't. You can make yourself an idea of the weather of that theme.

• The romance is believable. I mean, it happens very fast, but it's not Disney's "Real Love" They are just two people who LIKE each other caught in the massive chaos of a volcano, not much more.

• the special effects are plain awesome! Not only the gigantic explosion and lava bombs, and tsunamis. Also the small things, like the views of the city in the background, and the aerial shots.

• The city was amazing. People complain "Pompeii is not a port city" Well, actually it WAS, but the eruption changed the shape of the coastline. And the fact that THAT city shown in the movie WAS Pompeii. They actually shoot in place and then recreated the city out of the remainings using CGI. So the grid shape, the walls and everything is in place just as it was 2000 years ago. Archaeologists have in fact praised the director for his recreation of the city

• the volcano. It's the star of the movie without a doubt. It seems to have almost a personality. The way the eruption happened was very close to what actually happened. Some artistic liberties were made for the sake of entertaining. You won't be seeing any clichéd lava river because Mount Vesubius doesn't work that way.

• The ending. It was amazing. I can't spoil it for you, but making it in any other way would have damaged the quality of the film.

• The acting. It was really good for what I was expecting. Milo surprised me a lot, because I could really believe him as a lead man. The girl also. She seemed so plain in photos, but once the movie started I could say she nailed the part perfectly and was by no means just "miss fanservice", as girls in these kinds of movies tend to be. The real surprise was Atticus. The actor totally stealed the movie for himself in every scene, something that was perfect for an invicted champion in the peak of his gladiatorial career.

What didn't I like? The fact that the other famous city in the vicinity of Vesubius(Herculaeum, I think it's called) wasn't showed in the aerial shots. I mean, obviously the movie would be to complicated if we include it in the plot, but an aerial cameo of this other city would have been a fine addition to the movie, and would have improved the accuracy of it.

In 79 A.D., a Celtic tribe of horsemen is slaughtered by the Roman Senator Corvus (Kiefer Sutherland), his right-hand man Proculus (Sasha Roiz) and their army. The boy Milo is the only survivor that is captured later and sold as slave. Seventeen years later, the slave Milo (Kit Harington) turns into an invincible gladiator in a province and is brought to Pompeii to participate in the games in the arena. While walking to Pompeii, the noble Cassia (Emily Browning) and her chaperone Ariadne (Jessica Lucas) cross with the path of the slaves and Cassia is fascinated by Milo. He shares the cell of Atticus (Adewale Akinnuoye- Agbaje), who is near to get his freedom depending on winning his last fight. Meanwhile Cassia meets her parents Severus (Jared Harris) and Aurelia (Carrie-Anne Moss) and learns that she has been betrothed to the corrupt Senator Corvus that is pressing her parents to marry her. During the games, the Mount Vesuvius erupts and Milos and his friend Atticus succeed to escape from the arena. But Milo wants to save his beloved Cassia in the middle of the chaos and the Romans.

"Pompeii" is a full of action and dull romance in the tragic environment of the last days of Pompeii. Disaster movies were popular in the 70's ("Airport", "The Towering Inferno", and "Earthquake" among others) and Paul W.S. Anderson returns to the genre after "Titanic". The entertaining story is silly with poor lines and dialogs, but never boring. Kit Harington, the "Jon Snow" from "Games of Thrones", makes it worth to see at least on DVD. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Pompeia" ("Pompeii")

Dialogue & acting - repackaged as old English (18th century) by Hollywood for it's lyrical movieness (and to fit Hollywood stereotyping). Acting was daytime soap TV level.

Characters - noncreative, plug and play characters e.g. gladiators (one black & soon to become friends with adversary - been done before); other gladiator sees parents die at Roman hands and is now old enough for revenge - also been done before; really bad Romans acting badly; aristocratic pretty daughter (still has 21st century make up, eye liner, etc.) falls for slave gladiator (of course).

Action scenes - good gladiators defeat dozens of Romans as brunch (I was waiting for one hand tied behind the back and blindfolded but the writers copped out).

CGI - flashes of CGI volcano every 5 to 10 minutes to remind us of what the movie is about. Familiar scenes of water rushing over the city - already used in many tsunami movies and is getting old. Looked like the same wave used in several Indian Ocean tsunami films recently, but not as well done as say in "The Impossible". Fireballs came off as comical fireworks effects.

Hollywood deals with an ancient catastrophe.

The above phrase contains all one needs to be aware with regards to Pompeii. Brilliant and breathtaking spectacle marred by superficial storyline.

We live the last days of Pompeii leading to the eruption of Vesuvius. A slave arrives in town in order to fight for his life as part of a spectacle for a senator from Rome. He befriends another gladiator and the daughter of the town's governor falls for him.

On the one hand, a great job has been done to escalate the audiences tension as we await for Armageddon to hit and the visual climax does not disappoint. The effects are spectacular and the destruction is displayed to its full core.

Sadly, whilst these men who were treated like animals and were an object of sport for their slave owners had a chance to escape they put everything to jeopardy for a girl crush who was also part of the system that oppressed them. Had this been presented from the angle of a friendship between two men that were to fight one another to death it would have some resonance but for some cheesy romance it proved a major anticlimax in the otherwise impressive high point leading to sheer indifference as to whether any of them survived or not.

To me, this is a 'what you see is what you get' movie, with a stalwart cast including Kiefer Sutherland, Carrie - Anne Moss, EmilBrowning, Adewele Aggbaje, Kit Harrington and Sasha Roiz. Slaves fighting in the arena, Vesuvius threatening to explode, a love´story, Roman brutality and tragedy for hundreds of thousands. This film has it all- nearly. It's entertaining with different story-lines and better than some of the reviews say.

I got dragged to see this. I knew it was going to suck. It sucked in a "it's so bad it's good" kind of way. I was never bored. Mostly laughing and saying, "You know nothing John Snow."

But you know a movie is bad when it ends with a scene that is supposed to be emotional and tragic, and the whole theater bursts out laughing.

I feel like there's no point in me going over how poorly written the characters were, because I'm sure everyone else has already done that. The romance was extremely random. It's like they didn't even care about the story.

To be fair, the visual effects were great, but really, today there are so many movies with great visuals, this one does nothing new. Although it turns out that the filmmakers did their research for this film and the set designs and the eruption were very true to fact (except for the lava bombs and the tsunami) and even the ash-figures we see at the end were based on (stress on based on) actual figures that were discovered. So that raises the film a bit in my respect.

Also,

Atticus: Which bastard will be the one I kill today? Me: Ned Stark's bastard.

Sorry. :P

I watched this movie for these reasons:

1. Kit Harington's abs 2. Epic volcano 3. Watching slaves fight back

I got what I came for and expected nothing else

Pompeii is wonderfully trashy, a 3D mash-up of all the gladiator movies you've seen and then some. Wearing its inspirations on its sleeve, the film is entirely predictable and derivative, but that doesn't mean that the film itself isn't any fun! Without giving too much away (as though the poster isn't obvious enough), I caught myself enjoying the film, feeling almost a little embarrassed as I chuckled at the melodramatic feel of the enterprise, watching the volcano erupt and wreak havoc as the film tried to make time for youthful love AND revenge. Kiefer Sutherland of 24 (and 1993's cinematic landmark Three Musketeers? No?) fame hams it up as the lead villain, a Roman senator named Corvus who loves to chew scenery and be despicably evil. Jon Sno-er, Kit Harington is perfectly serviceable as the lead, a rebellious and vengeful gladiator known as the Celt. His cheese-grater abs and smoldering looks at the female lead, Emily Browning (as Cassia, daughter of Pompeii's "ruler"), amount to a whole lot of nothing, however, as the film's prospective love story never really gets off the ground, with most of their romance conveyed through extended eye contact and longing looks. The rest of the supporting cast turns in acceptable performances with adequate deliveries of the corny, clichéd dialogue, with Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as the powerful, axe-wielding gladiator champion Atticus standing out from the rest of the pack. This is shallow fare, and if you go into the film expecting a cinematic wonder on par with, say, a Ben-Hur (OR pick an epic sword and sandals flick you love), you will be quite disappointed at the end result. Director Paul W.S. Anderson, known best for his work on the Resident Evil film franchise, is no maverick, though he seems to be knowingly shooting for a film on par with other guilty pleasures he has created (the first Resident Evil film, for example), striking an old-school feel that ensures he film has no aspirations for higher cinema "glory." The fight scenes are cut up a bit much, with editing ruining some of the impact of brutally quick swordplay making this a mostly bloodless affair, and the mostly humorless narrative never coalesces into a satisfying love story, but if you go into the film with adjusted expectations and leave your history lessons at the door, the blaring score, heated arena battles, and overwhelming, destructive CGI spectacle may just make you smile. It doesn't hurt if you want to see Jack Bauer and a Game of Thrones hero (and a volcano?!) square off either! The rating is: (a decidedly weak) 7!

"Pompeii" is cheesy and okay. Just okay. The special effects are good enough, and the cast is very good, so it could have been a much better film than it is. Ooooh well.

Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje stood out for me as Atticus a noble, undefeated gladiator. I couldn't help but think that this guy should be a bigger star, and that perhaps his difficult name stood in his way. Kit Harington is charismatic and believable as Milo, a sensitive, horse- loving Celt who is forced to fight as a gladiator. He charms Cassia, a rich Roman girl (Emily Browning) and their love is believable. Kiefer Sutherland is an evil Roman Senator. Sutherland camps it up, doing a Boris Karloff imitation throughout the film. Not sure why he picked Karloff; perhaps just to see if anyone would notice. Sasha Roiz, who is from Israel, has a face, head and hair right off of a Roman mosaic, and he's good as yet another sadistic Roman officer, Sutherland's right-hand man.

This movie is obviously thrown together with little thought or heart, and it's a shame that more was not done with it. There's a scene where Milo and Cassia escape on horseback. That scene could have been classic – you've got a handsome slave who faces nothing but death in the arena, a beautiful maiden being menaced by a predatory Roman senator, and a nighttime escape on a gorgeous white horse: so much to work with! Instead their escape is just plopped on screen with no artistry at all. You're watching a rehearsal, not a real movie.

Special effects include aerial views of ancient Pompeii, earthquakes, cracking villas, sinkholes, volcanic eruption, and a tsunami. These are all okay, but I bet you could see equally good footage, if not better, on televised nature documentaries. There is lots of gladiatorial combat. I'm not qualified to judge these scenes. I usually squint my eyes and grimace throughout them and I have no idea how accurate they are. Somehow the consistency with which Milo and Atticus are able to defeat many more, and better armored opponents didn't convince me.

While watching this movie I couldn't help but reflect on Cecil-B- Demille-style sword and sandal movies from the fifties and early sixties. Those movies had special effects, but they also focused on gripping storytelling, larger than life stars like Charlton Heston, Yul Brynner, and Richard Burton, and they had some larger point. Even without the CGI, those movies were often more satisfying than more recent films who sink everything in special effects and ignore more old fashioned storytelling craft.