"Darkness came...
Like the black of closed and unlighted rooms.
You could hear women lamenting,
Children crying,
Men shouting..."
- Pliny the Younger, an eyewitness to the Mount Vesuvius Eruption
Director Paul Anderson brought this movie to life in 2014.
IMDb says:
A slave-turned-gladiator finds himself in a race against time to save his true love, who has been betrothed to a corrupt Roman Senator. As Mount Vesuvius erupts, he must fight to save his beloved as Pompeii crumbles around him.
More on IMDb here
So here's my review:
To put it bluntly, it sucked. I mean if you like the cliche movie about how the hero has to save the one he loves, then by all means watch it. But if you want a good story to watch with a plot that makes sense - just say no. The only thing that moves the plot along is the historical eruption of Mount Vesuvius. I think this movie tried to gather some momentum by copying what the amazing movie Gladiator did - by showing what happens in the arena's scattered across the Roman Empire. However, it failed horribly at this. It was actually kind of ludicrous how they presented the gladiators. I'd say the only thing they got right was how corrupt the Romans (specifically politicians) were. The way how the bad guy in this movie dies is more humorous than meaningful. In my opinion, if your gonna kill a character in a story - bad or good - it should have a purpose. Why would you have a pointless death? It does nothing for character development.
To sum up this movie, it basically is the cliche love story of how the villain steals away the person that the hero loves and the hero goes to save her. The only difference is they add in a historical tragedy to make it worse and more tense. Unfortunately, they obviously didn't do any research on the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and the destruction of Pompeii - nor did they have any basic understanding of how Volcanoes work - no one survives a Pyroclastic Flow that close to the foot a Volcano. Now of course they do this fact justice at the end of movie, but they have the main characters running away from this cloud of fire and super heated ash for a long period of time. They even have enough time to fight the villain of the movie as well, despite this Pyroclastic Flow coming in the background.
This did have some good points though. I mean it did have the cliche love story. I think I said cliche too many times in this post... Anyway. I think that they did show the Romans in a good way. However I think that the Villain's bodyguard (who is a Roman Officer - possibly a Legate) would not have acted the way he did in this movie. I think after the Roman Senator (the Villain) leaves him behind to die as the Pyroclastic Flow is coming their way, the Legate would not have stayed and wasted his time and fought with a mere slave. He would have ran away trying to save his life.
The crazy thing is. This movie did have quite a good cast of actors. A young Kit Harrington and Kiefer Sutherland are just some of those who were casted. But I think bad writing and the inability to seek the help of Historians or even pick up a history book or look it up online was the primary reason to blame the failing of this movie.
I did think the funniest part of this whole movie was when the Protagonist snaps the Roman Eagle Standard in front of the Roman Senator. I couldn't stop laughing at that. If you know what the Roman Standard means to the Romans you know why I enjoyed that scene.
Oh well. Not all movies are awesome. It being a supposed historical movie, I obviously watched it. Yep, well don't watch it exactly for historicity. haha. Go ahead and watch it if you want, but I wouldn't recommend it.
Hey, I hear that Pompeii was a hot spot.
I guess they had a heated end.
Maybe explosive end?
Cloudy end?
I'm digging myself a hole, ain't I?
Oh well, I'm on fire.
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