Despite what the title might suggest, Pompeii isn’t really about the city or the disaster that destroyed it. The epic event that’s on the poster merely serves as a backdrop for what turns out to be a fairly blatant ripoff of Gladiator. This was a chance to explore the life of a city on the verge of destruction. Instead, it delivers a tamer version of a boilerplate gladiator narrative. And it barely makes the effort to tell this story, too. It mostly feels like we’re all just waiting for that volcano to explode.
As a child, the gladiator known as Celt (Kit Harrington) witnessed the death of his entire village at the hands of the Romans. Seventeen years after that horrific event, Celt has become one of the top contenders in Londinium. His great skill at fighting brings him to the city of Pompeii to fight in the arena. There he catches the attention of aristocrat Cassia (Emily Browning). The two form a connection, but their relationship is made complicated by the arrival of the villainous Senator Corvus (Kiefer Sutherland), who once led the Legion that destroyed the Celt's village, and now seeks to make Cassia his wife.
This all happens in the shadow of Mt. Vesuvius, which as we all know, is meant to erupt and bury the entire city under hot ash. The film takes a while to get into full-on disaster movie mode, spending much of its runtime putting together a mostly bloodless facsimile of the Ridley Scott film Gladiator. The film may be titled Pompeii, but there is little in here that concerns the real story of the city or its place in history. The film basically defaults to a story that’s been told several times before, without really adding anything of value.
When the disaster does strike, the movie starts to come alive. The film takes great pleasure in portraying the fall of the city. Great effort seems to have been put into making the crumbling buildings look just right. The visual effects aren't particularly impressive, but the scenes of mayhem have a great sense of scale. It all feels massive, the film always drawing back to show just how all encompassing these horrific events are. The film manages to stage a couple of really dramatic death scenes, capturing a majestic sense of tragedy as the floor literally crumbles under these people.
But in the end, all that mayhem is just a backdrop for a terribly generic story. There isn’t much heat to the romance between the Celt and Cassia. There’s little escalation in the grudge between the hero and Corvus. Kit Harrington makes for a perfectly fine lead, but this is a pretty bland role. He seems to have been recruited solely for the definition in his abdominal muscles. Kiefer Sutherland adopts a hilarious Patrician accent in playing the Roman senator. He offers the film a twinge of life within all the dreary bits of self-serious gladiatorial struggle.
Pompeii isn’t exactly terrible. It has a couple of well-crafted fight scenes, and the disaster scenes are kind of impressive. But it all feels pretty lifeless. There doesn’t seem to be any particular love for this bit of history, and so the filmmakers just rammed in whatever excuse they could find to have people fighting each other. There has to be more to Pompeii than just its destruction, but that’s pretty much all the filmmakers cared to portray.
My Rating:
