Pompéi

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

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.

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.

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.