Review of Pompeii (2014) by Adrian Z — 15 May 2014

Pompeii is a derivative, albeit watchable, sword and sandals epic until, that is, Mount Vesuvius explodes and leads to a mindnumbing final segment that tries, and fails to logically mix the denouement of a gladiatorial revenge story with trite late-70s disaster movie cliches.

Harrington and Akinnouye-Agbaje are solid hero material, but Sutherland, as a villainous Roman senator, chews the obviously artificial CG scenery, spits it out, and chews it some more. Anderson and his team of three writers play fast and loose with facts, and curiously for such a big movie, the special effects for exploding volcanoes look worse than recent TV documentaries on the subject.

Movie blown.