Pompeii...

Earlier today, I watched Paul W.S. Anderson's cinematic take on the volcanic eruption that wiped out a Roman city back in 79 A.D., and all I can say is, this was one of the most derivative movies I've seen in a while. Clearly, Anderson and/or his screenwriting team for Pompeii must have viewed the film Gladiator (and maybe the 2004 Brad Pitt flick, Troy) around the time the script was being written. From a man (Milo, played by Kit Harington) who lost his family due to a murderous Roman politician (Corvus, played by Kiefer Sutherland) and befriending an African slave (Atticus, played by Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) who he was suppose to fight to the death in a gladiatorial fight, to the 'thumb-down' gesture and the line, "We who are about to die, salute you," Pompeii is the unofficial and CGI-heavy sequel to Ridley Scott's 2001 Academy Award winner. While the thumb-down gesture and "We who are about to die..." salute was used in real life (I think), I find it amusing that Anderson must have presumed that enough time had passed since Russell Crowe's Oscar-winning take on Maximus to copy Scott's flick pretty much scene-by-scene...up until the eruption of Mount Vesuvius itself. Not surprisingly, the visual effects of the volcano coming to life and decimating Pompeii was top-notch—and I'm tempted to see how the visuals in Pompeii compare to those of 1997's Volcano and Dante's Peak. Or the volcanic eruptions on the planet Mustafar in Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, for that matter.



I have to give props to Anderson for opening the movie with a shot of Pompeii victims completely encased in volcanic ash...which is what really happened. You can actually see plaster casts of these poor souls in person at the Archaeological Museum of Naples in Italy today. Apart from the volcano part, I also wanted to check out this film just to see how well Kiefer Sutherland pulled off a Roman accent as Corvus—what with me being a huge fan of 24 and all. I'm also a big fan of Emily Browning after watching her ass-kicking performance as Babydoll in the 2011 Zack Snyder flick, Sucker Punch (Browning was also in the 2004 Jim Carrey film, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events...but she wasn't exactly toting a sword or automatic rifles in that movie). And in case you're wondering, no, not even her character Cassia was able to avoid Vesuvius' wrath. That is all.