“Pompeii”

Rated PG-13 for intense battle sequences, disaster-related action and brief sexual content.

“Pompeii” is one of the world’s most profound tragedies. I refer, of course, to director Paul W.S. Anderson’s cinematic disaster, not that minor incident in Italy in 79 AD. “Pompeii” erupts, not with lava, but with twiddle-twaddle. Unlike that little burp Mt. Vesuvius had, Mt. Anderson spews suffocating mawkish melodrama. The plot is doltish and shamelessly goes after the ignorant, immature and romance-obsessed film fan victim; the one who prefers sex to be antiseptic and noble and romantic love to be soulful but tragic. The plot is so puerile it would embarrass a 13-year-old girl with an unhealthy attraction to Gerald Butler’s rectus abdominis.

The movie begins in Britannia years before; a young lad, from a tribe of Celtic Horse Whisperers, witnesses his tribe and family massacred by Roman soldiers, led by Senator Keifer Sutherland in Roman body armor and smirking like a Nazi in Poland. (I am not sure if he was attempting an English accent or if he had a canker sore and his mouth didn’t quite work right.)

Then, suddenly, the little mopish tyke gets kidnapped and, by adulthood, is made into a gladiator. Along the way, he sees Cassia (Emily Browning), a Pompeii noblewoman. He admires her chiffon belly-dancing outfit (nothing like the togas I have seen in the history books) and she admires his manly bits. Milady’s horse falls and breaks its leg and Milo (Kit Harrington) whispers gently and kindly to the horse while he puts the beast out of its misery. From then on, she is olive oil to his vinegar.

Upon arriving at Pompeii, he is sent to the arena where he is scheduled by his Dominus, a Nero-looking chappie, to fight the now ubiquitous Gravelly Voiced Big Black Gladiator (Atticus) played by Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (about the only actor that shows dignity while slumming in this putrid potboiler).

Anyway, Vesuvius finally begins to erupt (about time) and Milo realizes that he must save his damsel before she is “ashified.” He and his now bromance buddy, Atticus, start running to save her but must deal with Keifer who wanted to conquer Cassia all for himself.

The screenwriters (Lee and Janet Scott Batchler) of “Pompeii” are either idiots or they assume their audience members are morons. Roman noble ladies married for elevation of station and money, romance was never, ever in the mix; if it was, it was serendipitous. And in Pompeii a woman like Cassia would have married the senator in a snip-snap and taken Milo as her servant and secret lover. Sex in marriage among the nobles was a business transaction, not an affair of the heart. I suspect Mr. Anderson failed to read a single book about the Romans, much less Pompeii. I doubt if he even watched a History Channel documentary. I despise such contempt for history.

“Pompeii” is a mishmash of many films, so many that I lost count: Starz Channel’s Spartacus series, the “300” franchise, “Gladiator,” “Ben-Hur,” and most especially “Titanic.” Alas, Pompeii isn’t even equal to the worst of them.

Frankly, this film was embarrassing to watch and the ending was downright ridiculous. Perhaps bursting into flame, being pummeled by lava rock, or asphyxiated by volcanic gases would have been preferable to suffering the ignobility of watching this disaster.  

The star in this film should have been Mt. Vesuvius but the CGI effects were more Cheez Whiz than Casilli provolone (Pompeii’s neighbor for you non-epicureans). I have seen better quality in the Japanese Kaiju movies of the 1950s.

I care about you, dear reader, and I beg you not to be caught gasping for quality entertainment at the foothills of Pompeii where the very air is toxic and your appreciation of the cinematic arts will meet certain death encased by the sappy schlock disgorged by the talent-deprived Mr. Anderson.

Nary a bow tie goes to this appalling insult to history and to cinema.