movie review: POMPEII (2014)

(reviews may contain spoilers for those that have never seen the film or are unfamiliar with the characters.)

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POMPEII (2014)

Milo (Kit Harington) is a Celtic barbarian, captured as a young child after his village was slaughtered by Roman General Corvus (Kiefer Sutherland), who was sent to quell a rebellion.

Despite orders being given that all shall be put to the sword Milo survives, only to live the life of a slave in the gladiatorial arena.

Eventually Milo and Corvus (now a Roman Senator) cross paths once more, during that ill fated week in 79 AD when Pompeii was wiped from the Roman World.

To complicate matters, Milo becomes enamored with a local administrator's daughter Cassia (Emily Browning), who has also caught the eye of Corvus.

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It's that time of the year when Hollywood entices us with the first of what they hope will be the big movies of the year.

Such seemed to be Pompeii when the first trailers suggested this was a can't miss film we'd have to see. When I saw my first trailer last fall I did make a mental note to see it when it was finally released.

To make it even more interesting, it would be a part of the ever growing number of films released in 3D. Who can resist a volcano decimating a Roman city when it's done in 3D?

I didn't. But, I should have.

This marked Kit Harington's first headliner performance. He's better known as Jon Snow, in HBO's Game of Thrones.

"The Celt", as Milo is commonly known, seemed like a cross between Clint Eastwood's Man with No Name movies and Arnold Schwarzenegger's Conan the Barbarian.

I suppose Milo's life would have been somber; seeing his parents slaughtered before his childhood eyes, and then living life as a slave. But, Harington's delivery seemed tired most of the time.

Carrie-Anne Moss (Matrix trilogy, Chocolat, Vegas)  gets second billing. I guess she earned it because of her track record. But, you could have replaced her with any number of stock Hollywood actresses for all the screen time she actually had.

Sadly, even Sutherland's portrayal of Corvus was somewhat laughable. He delivered his lines with one of two speeds. Most of the time he talked with a smugness and strange accent that sounded artificial at best. While, during the few times he shows full blown hatred he's to the point of almost screaming.

Relatively unknown Emily Browning (Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, Sucker Punch) does an adequate job with Cassia. Seemingly innocent at first. But, then more seems to meet the eye as things get complicated between her, Milo and Corvus.

My favorite character was Atticus, played by Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Oz, Lost, GI Joe: Rise of Cobra).

While we don't know Atticus' background, he's obviously a proud man who survived as a gladiator long enough that his next match will earn what he wants most…his freedom. Yet, it's believable when he throws that to the wind when he sees duty, honor and revenge in helping Milo.

I felt more compassion for Atticus than I did for Milo; mostly because of the actors' performances.

The 3D effects were pretty much a waste of the extra $3 the theater charged to rent special glasses. With the exception of a few rocks and boulders flying around, it did absolutely nothing for me, to the point of forgetting the 3D effect was even there.

Sure, the best 3D films are those that don't overdo the effect, throwing it in the viewer's face. But, Pompeii was so underdone.

Director Paul W.S. Anderson (Resident Evil series, Event Horizon, AVP: Alien vs. Predator) told CBS that, "Obviously, it's a movie, not a documentary…but the story of Pompeii is so remarkable you don't need to embellish it."

If that's the case why did they? There are some glaring historical inaccuracies. But I can't mention them without spoiling some of the more intense parts of the film.

Perhaps he felt he needed to pad the script, because the film's running time is only 1 hour 39 minutes. Relatively short for a Hollywood epic these days.

It might have been better to devote the time to developing the relationship between Cassia and her parents, and to showing more of the life of a gladiator.

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I really can't recommend this as a can't miss film and it will, no doubt, be forgotten by next year's Oscar nominations.

If you've invested in a big screen TV with super sound system, do yourself a favor and wait for the DVD release.

However, If you must see it in the theater, look for a matinee or some other discount. But, you'd better do it soon. Judging from the size of the crowd on opening weekend it may not be around too long.

RATED: 4.0 out of 10 STARS

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Nearby theaters currently showing Pompeii are the UA Berkeley 7, AMC Bay Street 16 and Century 16 Hilltop.

A full listing of show times and locations can be found at Fandango.

Go Westeros Young Man!

DISCLAIMER: This blog entry DOES contain spoilers for anyone who has never seen HBO's Game of Thrones television series and never read any of George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire book series.

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• 9 1/2 weeks
• Five books
• 4300 pages
• 1.7 million words

Let the withdrawals begin!!!

To be perfectly honest, I can't believe I'm already done with all the books. When I took up the task of reading George RR Martin's epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire, I figured it would take all Summer before I'd be done; just in time for the next book to hit the shelves.

Or so I thought. Martin is nicknamed The Great Bearded Glacier for good reason! He writes at his own pace, and is reluctant to acknowledge estimated release dates. It now looks as if the soonest The Winds of Winter will be released is sometime during Spring 2014.)

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February 2012, I signed up for Comcast's Triple Play Package, and the deal included free HBO. Until that time I had a vague understanding of the Game of Thrones TV series. But, didn't know much of else about it.

Like some unexpected addict-to-be I surfed the On Demand menu until I found Game of Thrones.

Watching the first episode, I was intrigued. By the time I got through the second episode I was floored. I think it took me about three days to work through the entire season, only to find out Season Two wasn't due for several weeks.

Fast forward to late April 2012. I was eagerly anticipating the new season, and what would one do in that case? Well, naturally watch the entire Season One all over again to refresh their memory.

NOOOOOOO! I thought, as they flashed the 2013 release date for Season Three at the end of Episode 10.

One of my bigger frustrations when I decided to cut the cord was the thought I would be missing Season 3 of HBO's Game of Thrones television series.

Shortly thereafter, I found a couple of Barnes & Noble gift cards, forgotten and collecting dust.

I figured maybe it would be a good idea to dive into the original novels since, at that time, HBO didn't offer their current season through iTunes or Amazon, and a Season Three DVD release was nowhere on the radar (and still isn't).

So in April I took the plunge, and downloaded the sample.

I found the first novel very readable and didn't want to put it down. When I reached the end of the sample there was no question I would buy the series.

A word of caution. If you decide to get the eBook versions, I highly recommend buying the INDIVIDUAL books, rather than the special 5 book collection.

While the $10 savings might seem attractive, it's not worth the headache while reading. The collection is ONE VOLUME with all five books smooshed together so it takes over six minutes to open every time you want to read it! And it doesn't matter if you might be on the fifth book. You STILL have to load the first four books into memory.

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Anytime something gets translated to the screen there's bound to be some changes. Sometimes it follows the source material pretty close. But, sometimes about the only thing left are the names of the characters and the title of the book.

Fortunately, for fans of the novels, this hasn't turned out to be the case. The first book was pretty close to what made it to my TV for Season One. Material left out really didn't hurt the continuity. This is a direct benefit of having Martin take an active role in production of the series.

Overall, the TV show has aged most of the main characters a bit, especially the younger characters, who Martin placed in their early to mid teens. While a young teenage King Robb Stark might be believable in a book format, which relies on the reader's imagination, I don't think it would have translated very well to the TV.

But make no mistake in thinking these are a series of children's fantasy books. While there are wolves, princes and princesses throughout, there is also blood and gore at every turn, as well as a major plotline of incest running though out.

Had the producers stuck with the youthful ages I'm fairly certain they would have run afoul of groups who found the visualizations objectionable.

But, I will readily admit that perhaps my perception of what the characters should look like was clouded by watching the series before reading the books. Martin goes at great lengths to describe physical characteristics of his characters, and a good portion of them do not match what made it to TV.

Seasons Two and Three (which I watched in one 10 hour sitting thanks to someone who still has HBO) have some major diversions for some of the characters as compared to the original source material.

A couple of characters have been combined, who had passages in the book, which had them doing things in different parts of the world at exactly the same time.

This will make for some tough editorial decisions down the road since I think they both might become important parts of the novels' story line in the remaining two unreleased titles.

Another thing which caught my eye were the cities in the opening credits. These stylized credits zoom over a map showing us which cities are likely to be visited in that particular episode.

Yunkai and Meereen are two cities that have very important storylines in books 3 and 5. However, there seems to be no room on the map for the latter city. We will have to wait until April 2014 to see if this was just a glitch by the animators, or whether we diverge even further from what Martin created.

There's a very detailed wiki which collects all the differences between the books and the TV show.

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So am I glad I went ahead and read the books, effectively knowing where the TV series will be going over the next three seasons? Yes.

The world that Martin created is so rich, that there's a lot of stuff that simply won't make it to the screen. And the producers have already said they don't see it being stretched to ten seasons, which would be necessary to save some of the less important stuff.

Can a person get by with only watching the TV series? Sure. But, you're cheating yourself of the fuller experience.

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if you are still looking for something to do between TV seasons, I highly recommend subscribing to The Boiled Leather Audio Hour podcast.

These guys make a super detailed examination of all facets of the world Martin created! Be forewarned every episode is basically loaded with spoilers if you've not read all five books.