Pompeii
Dir: Paul W. S. Anderson
2014
**
Disaster film is right. Pompeii is world famous for it's volcano and for the bodies found and since preserved. These bodies were the victims of Mount Vesuvis's AD 79 eruption that was the first recorded time a pyroclastic flow was witnessed and recorded, thanks to Pliny the Younger. These bodies are famous for the fact that they are all frozen in time doing everyday things. Some are sleeping, some are cooking, some are even on the toilet. So a film that shows people running from Vesuvis is the first major historical inaccuracy and it's the first of many. It's basically a rubbish version of Gladiator with a Volcano in the background, Titanic in Togas if you will. Forget the history though, is it fun? Well, no, not really. I quite liked Kiefer Sutherland's campy Roman bad guy but for all the wrong reasons. The special effects are over the top but of good quality, that's all I can credit the film with really, that and the un-Disney ending.