I
have always had a thing about disaster films. I could give you a line about how
I enjoy watching mankind overcome diversity and cataclysmic events. But that
would be a lie, truth is I like to watch things get destroyed. There is
something about watching those iconic places blown up, or flooded, or even
frozen. Maybe it all started with the iconic ending of the original “Planet of
The Apes” and that Statue of Liberty shot, or maybe the White House being blown
up in “Independence Day”. Whatever started it I don’t know, but we as
moviegoers like watching them.
We’ve had
our fill lately of disaster films showing us fictional versions of the end of
the world, but why not show something that actually happened? We have all heard
the story of Pompeii, the Roman city that was built at the base of a volcano.
As you know from history, things did not work out too well for the city as the
volcano erupted and obliterated Pompeii. Since we can only take so many
fireballs destroying buildings, or earthquakes opening up beneath us, we are
given good old human drama. No, not the drama of all the people who perished at
the hands of the volcano, just the drama of a few. Milo (Kit Harington) is a
slave, but more importantly a gladiator, whose talents have taken him to
Pompeii. On the way he uses his skills with a horse to impress Cassia (Emily
Browning), who just happens to be important. Milo is set to fight Pompeii’s
champion Atticus (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), but during another engagement runs
into Corvus (Kiefer Sutherland) the man who killed his father, who is in town
to make Cassia his wife. Can you smell
the conflict? The volcano, however has other plans, and has no time for
weddings or gladiator matches and soon erases Pompeii from existence.
Ever
since “Titanic” writers have taken the worst disasters and added a love story
amidst the chaos. Now while it may work in some cases, others, like “Pompeii” doesn't find that balance. I have always heard that if you do not have anything
nice to say you shouldn't say anything at all, well then this would just be a
blank page, and we can’t have that. Written by four different writers, two of
whom brought us the classic “Batman Forever” and directed by Paul W.S Anderson
(The Three Musketeers), you kind of know what you are getting. If the writing
and the direction wasn't bad enough, we get Jack Bauer with a sword instead of
a gun and not very “special” special effects. With flying boulders that have
perfect aim, and water that stops is the strangest place, the people of this
movie are the luckiest and unluckiest victims of a disaster movie. Everything
about the movie was bad. Even in my
distant and fading memories of “Dante’s Peak” and “Volcano” I never found
myself actually rooting for the lava like I did here. Just when you think they
could not do anything worse, they save the best for last and give you an ending
so cheesy, only this movie could have done it. My advice, go see “The Lego
Movie” again, and leave the disaster films to the 70’s where they belong.
Brian Taylor
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