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Critics Consensus: This big-budget sword-and-sandal adventure lacks the energy and storytelling heft to amount to more than a guilty pleasure.
Critic Consensus: This big-budget sword-and-sandal adventure lacks the energy and storytelling heft to amount to more than a guilty pleasure.
View All Pompeii News
All Critics (157) | Top Critics (30) | Fresh (42) | Rotten (115) | DVD (2)
Is it wrong to root for the volcano?
Parmageddon is nigh in this cheesy action melodrama that feels both overheated with plot developments, yet strangely curdled from a lack of histrionics that might have redeemed it as fun trash.
Narrative has never been Anderson's strength; the story here is a corny overhaul of James Cameron's already-corny Titanic.
No matter how much lava is afoot, there's always time to impale one more person with a sword.
A mindless but watchable fondue pot of high-calorie visuals and ready-made plotting ...
More fun than any civilization's fiery extinction should ever be, Paul W.S. Anderson's Pompeii 3-D is gloriously exciting kitsch - a poor man's Titanic crossed with an even poorer man's Gladiator.
Filmmaker Paul W. S. Anderson's misguided molten-driven melodrama Pompeii is not as explosive in conception as one would imagine based upon its manufactured, boisterous presentation.
Pompeii is bad, but not at all in the interesting way. It's derivative and tedious, without an original thought in its head on any level.
Besides some impressive technical wizardry, Pompeii lies in Paul W.S. Anderson's list of "let it burn" films.
The action sequences alone are jaw dropping, heart racing affairs but flashy stunts and technical wizardry don't always support a story lacking in character development, therefore giving you minimal people to root for.
There's not a single gesture that isn't a cliché, not a single line of script that isn't a stage direction or harvested shamelessly from Wikipedia.
At least Celine Dion doesn't appear on the soundtrack.
Let's start with the positive: the movie looks great, the visuals and effects really work. Little else does, though. The cast acts wooden, the story is predictable and boring, borrowing many elements from Gladiator and the end is cheesy as hell. Overall a real waste of time.
Super Reviewer
From a narrative point of view, this is an uninspired hodgepodge that simply recycles every cliché and convention of the genre (including an indestructible villain), being only worth it for the amusing, great-looking catastrophe, the nice score and Kit Harington's spectacular abs.
An average movie. Entertains and gives the viewer enough action for a Sunday afternoon!
The volcano ain't the only disaster vying for screen time in this block-bust of a flick. Chief among the disasters is Kiefer Sutherland, who puts on ill-fitting airs and an absurd British accent that seems to have been developed to entertain the minions at a children's garden party in North Hollywood. Kit Harington has lost any luster rubbed off from the Game of Thrones series, deadpanning his way through the muddle. The script is silly and defies probability. However, the special effects are pretty awesome with lots of hell fire and explosions to entertain the otherwise bored audience.
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