Review: ‘Pompeii’

Since Spartacus wrote the blueprint for momentous historical event-based drama/romance, the idea has been recycled to a box office bonanza many times. Pompeii almost carves out its own “Epic-lite” niche within this genre. It plays like a TV movie that shamelessly steals corny moments from bigger productions and stuffs as many of them into its short running-time as possible. It’s Titanic for the Twilight generation.

In keeping with this it stars a mixture of keen young TV actors well known to the target audience (Game of Thrones’ Kit Harington, for example), and established pros who might be a bit down on their luck. Cobbling this masterpiece together is Mr Resident Evil, director Paul W. S Anderson.

Like the films it apes we know this all ends tragically – but of course the setting’s merely the excuse for the struggles of our hero and heroine against impossible odds so that love may triumph.

It’s 62AD and the child Milo witnesses the bloody massacre of his Celtic village and family at the hands of Senator Corvus and his Roman legions as they pillage Britannia. Forward 17 years and the enslaved Milo’s talent for meting out bloody entertainment to the Londinium masses is noticed by the local slave trader, who whisks his protégé off to the bigger gladiatorial stage of Pompeii. There, as Mount Vesuvius steams and rumbles ominously, fate (and a mutual love of horses!) throws Milo together with Cassia, the winsome daughter of a wealthy merchant. But they haven’t counted on the return of the dreaded Senator Corvus, who has an eye for Cassia himself…

And so it goes. This is predictable but harmless pantomime stuff that’s not worth getting into a geyser over. In customary fashion the goodies are righteous and spirited (Yay! Milo and Cassia), the baddies sneering and cruel (Boo! Senator Corvus) and the set-pieces derivative but convincing. It’s a spectacular-looking film that will probably do OK business on the strength of the best costumes, production design and special volcanic effects that an $80 million budget can buy. It’s why we go to films like this.

The only demanding thing about Pompeii is keeping a straight face through the hackneyed dialogue and gaps in credibility. It must have been even tougher for the actors, who gamely deliver their fruity lines without flinching – Kiefer Sutherland clearly enjoys snarling his way through his role as the corrupt Senator.

So on a gee-whiz-look-at-that level this succeeds, sort of, but you’ll be disappointed if you’re hoping for romantic reminiscences of Titanic. Without an open mind and a huge packet of Malteasers you’ll have no defence against the wooden dialogue and clichéd situations assaulting you at breath-taking pace. Fortunately relief comes after 104 minutes as the film, like Vesuvius, climaxes spectacularly in an orgy of molten rock, anguished cries and passionately desperate last embraces.

Still, like me you’ll probably leave the cinema smiling – in disbelieving admiration at the balls of director Anderson, who chose to finish with one of the most inventively corny closing scenes in cinema history.

5.5/10

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