Without having done any research on the movie
Pompeii and no word of mouth prior to watching the "film" including watching the trailer, I knew right away how the Writer and / or Director were going to approach this "story wise". When it comes to Hollywood and Historical Disasters, they always.....ALWAYS try to frame said disaster with a love story. Sometimes it works (
Titanic) and other times it fails miserably (
Pearl Harbor).
Pompeii falls into the latter for a lot of reasons. The writing here is bad and at times very amateurish. But it's the direction of
Paul W. S. Anderson that pretty much seals its fate. What's ironic is that the movie did start off "good" and I was willing to give this a serious shot. Give
Anderson a shot at turning in something of quality.
But I should have known better to think that he would become a filmmaker instead of a guy that is hellbent on proving people right about his body of work. I just don't get why he has to go to the lowest common denominator and put out schlock that is about as appetizing as Cotton Candy. The entire cast is pretty much wasted and they had a lot of top shelf actors:
Kit Harington, Kiefer Sutherland, Jared Harris, Sasha Roiz, Carrie-Anne Moss and
Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje. This is a definite
Skip. FYI, the movie is rated PG-13. For a Sword and Sandals flick, this is watered down. If you're expecting anything like
Spartacus: The Series, you're gonna be disappointed to say the least. You're better off watching the far superior
Gladiator, which this movie cribs a lot from by the way.