Official Synopsis
Set in 79 A.D., POMPEII tells the epic story of Milo (Harington), a slave turned invincible gladiator who finds himself in a race against time to save his true love Cassia (Browning), the beautiful daughter of a wealthy merchant who has been unwillingly betrothed to a corrupt Roman Senator (Sutherland). As Mount Vesuvius erupts in a torrent of blazing lava, Milo must fight his way out of the arena in order to save his beloved as the once magnificent Pompeii crumbles around him.
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Outside of the Discovery and History Channels, it’s tough to tell a story of Pompeii in a proper narrative, mainly because a lot of its story is either destroyed or simply not found due to the massive volcanic destruction that occurred around 79 AD.
Relying on the notes of Pliny the Younger, who is one of the only witnesses to Pompeii’s destruction (from afar), Paul W.S. Anderson puts together a narrative with writers Janet Scott Batchler, Lee Batchler and Michael Robert Johnson that is weak on character development, while massive on destruction. The movie begins with a young boy named Milo (Kit Harington), who is being ripped from his village into the servitude of gladiator-ship by a ruthless Roman leader named Corvus (Kiefer Sutherland). Milo has nothing to lose and does his best to slaughter everyone in front of him, hoping somewhere along the way he can have his revenge on the men who destroyed his family. Fast forward some years and Milo finds himself in Pompeii’s land and with an opportunity to take his revenge against Corvus and his men.
At this point in the film, it’s a strong story. We have a good revenge tale set up for a wonderful conclusion. Even though it has the markings of a Gladiator ripoff (and it does — go look to see how that started and compare), it still has a youthful strength about it that says things can be different with this story, if not better at times. A revenge story is tough to screw up because it’s very cut and dry (no pun intended).
Then things start turning a bit.
Enter Cassia (Emily Browning), daughter of Pompeii’s leader, Severus (Jared Harris). Cassia has just returned from Rome unexpectedly. Hot on her trail is Corvus, who played part in forcing her early return for some implied reason. Corvus doesn’t present that as his reason for returning, rather reasoning is to offer financial help to Severus to build a games arena for the city. Such a clever villain.
This portion of the film is merely glossed over in the story. You can firmly establish that Corvus isn’t a good person, even after 17 years of killing people and destroying villages. BUT! If you’re going to give imply there is some history between Corvus and Cassia then you’ve got to give it more than 2-3 sentences before calling it a day on backstory. If you’re going to beat around the bush and give no details then don’t make it important — in fact, don’t include it in the script. You could make the two characters hateful towards each other without building this very shallow backdrop you have no intention of supporting. Hell, let Corvus try to do something bad within Pompeii to Cassia, thus creating conflict between Corvus and Severus, and still maintaining strong conflict between Milo. I can think of ten different better ways this ‘history’ between the two characters could have been created rather than through assumption and it all would still lead to the same final conclusion.
Sadly, Anderson and writers try to make this connection between Corvus and Cassia important, but don’t bother to provide any backstory or detail on why. We’re left up to create that portion of the movie and it’s simply not right. The anger and animosity between the two characters is greater than just a simple misunderstanding. As Will Smith once said in Men In Black, “Don’t start nothing, won’t be nothing”, but Paul W.S. Anderson did start something between the two and sadly he didn’t finish it or explain it. I know as a screenwriter you aren’t supposed to over-explain characters/story, but this one deserved it. What comes out of the finished story is a shallow development between two characters that don’t give you enough reason to despise one over the other.
Moving on, as the film continues it tries to mix Cassia’s world with Milo’s through a horse, which is something Milo is good at working with and Cassia adores. Their attraction with each other is not strong enough to be established in this one instance. Considering the class system in Roman society, once you’re on the short end of that stick then regardless of morals, you’re not going to be respected. Again, lack of details and lack of development really hurt this relationship, as it’s connection is instant, but not justified. Anderson’s character development isn’t his strong point in his films, as he has noted many times over with his Resident Evil series.
Then the movie shifts again, this time for the better.
Once the volcano gets going on the poor people of Pompeii then Anderson’s strength as a filmmaker gets rolling. He brings total, utter, beautiful destruction to Pompeii and its people. He recreates a frightening, destructive tale about what the people of Pompeii went through as they were struggling to put together their tragic situation. The story that Anderson creates for this fits perfectly within the destruction, as he brings in bits and pieces of Milo’s struggle to get his freedom, Cassia’s desire to be with Milo, and Corvus’ ultimate final battle. Everything is going so fast, as the end is nigh for the folks of Pompeii, that the story works just fine because it’s all happening so darn quickly. You don’t have time to think about development at this point, you just enjoy the tragic ride as it unfolds. Anderson has always been a good finisher with action films and Pompeii is no different.
Regretfully, that’s not enough to save the movie. What you get with Pompeii is a poor man’s Titanic, a tragic love story (third class passenger trying to get with a first class passenger) in the first half and a movie that shines when everything is going to hell for the poor people of Pompeii. If you go into it expecting that then you’re going to be fine with the ultimate results.
As for the Blu-ray portion of the film, it’s beautiful. It certainly has a lot of obvious green screen in it, but the film is pretty much perfect in terms of HD transfer. You get a lot of heavy gold, red, black, brown and blue with a yellow tint to boot. There is no graininess or artifacts present in the final Blu-ray picture. There isn’t a compression issue nor is there any color banding, even though there were plenty of opportunities for color banding due to the majority of the film being darkly lit. Overall, you get a solid HD transfer for this Blu-ray.
(Reviewed in passive)
The 3D portion of this film is gorgeous, especially during the eruption scenes in the final part of this film. For example, towards the end of the volcanic destruction, you get some absolutely stunning depth with the ash in the foreground and destruction in the background, while the characters are struggling to escape in the middle ground. The added water and fire splashes help to make this 3D worth your time and money and probably the best part of the Blu-ray 3D experience when you’re trying to decide on whether to add this to your 3D library. It should also be noted that the non-destruction scenes are just as gorgeous at times. Some of the gladiator fighting scenes add some very interesting and properly equaled depth to the 3D experience.
Sony Pictures did a fantastic job with bringing some quality 3D to this release. Probably one of the better 3D releases this year.
Now, as for the special features, here’s what you’re getting:
· Filmmakers’ Commentary
· The Assembly – Cast and Characters
· The Volcanic Eruption – Special Effects
· 20 Deleted & Alternate Scenes
· The Gladiators – Stunts
· The Journey – Production Design
· The Costume Shop – Costume Design
· Pompeii: Buried in Time – Behind the Scenes of Ancient History’s Greatest Disaster
This set of features is pretty solid. You get some great information about how the film was made. The Assembly is nice, but short. The special effects featurette is actually pretty solid — it’s interesting seeing how the ash is made in the movie. The gladiators feature is cool, as is the production design featurette. The Pompeii featurette is probably the deepest of the bunch, as you get some information about the city itself, though don’t go expecting a History Channel documentary on it.
As for the deleted/alternate scenes, they’re worth the watch. I think some of them could have added more to the characters and the overall story. Sadly, they didn’t make it, but they’re worth the watch. The commentary is good.
Overall, the features are quite good. They definitely add more to the movie.
