Sometimes, it can be difficult to rate a movie. Pompeii is certainly intended to be an exaggerated melodrama. It also clearly wants to be an emotionally moving and exciting one that thrillingly depicts a historical event on an epic scale. Yet as presented this tale is ludicrous, building to such a level of fevered silliness that it indeed becomes enjoyable, albeit for entirely different reasons than intended.
Milo (Kit Harington) is a Celt and part of a horse-loving clan in Britain. When the lead’s village is razed to the ground by villainous Roman Corvus (Kiefer Sutherland), he vows to enact revenge. Milo hones his skills as a gladiator, working his way into the coliseum of Pompeii. On his travels, the lead encounters Cassia (Emily Browning), the fetching daughter of an upper class family. Cassia falls head over heels for the protagonist after sharing an intimate moment – one in which he performs euthanasia on a horse by snapping its neck. Unfortunately, their forbidden romance meets a hurdle in Corvus, who wants the young woman for his own. All the while, the frequent earthquakes rumbling around them suggest an imminent volcanic eruption.
Borrowing tropes liberally from gladiator flicks as well as disaster movies, the story is difficult to take seriously from the get-go. The script’s dialogue is so stilted and dramatic pauses so awkward that even the talented cast (which also includes Jared Harris and Carrie-Anne Moss), can’t save the day. The romantic leads aren’t given enough time together to develop chemistry, but it is Sutherland’s heavy that comes off as the most extravagant. It seems as if director Paul W.S. Anderson (Resident Evil: Afterlife, Resident Evil: Retribution, AVP: Alien vs. Predator and, you guessed it, Resident Evil) failed to inform the actor that the ear-splitting, special-effect ridden climactic eruption would only be featured in the final third of the film. The result is an overblown but enjoyably broad, scenery chewing turn, particularly when the antagonist hurls a modern insult at Cassia. If nothing else, his odd, campy interpretation of the role keeps the film interesting.
Between the romance and horse whispering, there are some amusing coliseum battles (that include a chant about the code of the gladiators that sound like misremembered AC/DC lyrics). And the big eruption offers some impressive visual effects and plenty of earth shattering devastation. All the same, we’re never invested or concerned about the fate of the characters because these exaggerated moments come across as comical. At one point, large chunks of the mountainside are thrust into Pompeii. A large rock crashes from the sky and bounces off of the head of an extra, who flails hilariously as he is knocked unconscious. As it occurred, one wouldn’t have been surprised had animated birds fluttered around the performer’s head like an old fashioned cartoon.
Despite the many gifted performers, everyone involved with Pompeii seems to be slumming. Those who appreciate work that recalls a poor man’s Irwin Allen opus from the 70’s may find themselves having a good time, but the majority of viewers will likely wish that this over-the-top absurdity would simply turn to ash.