First of all: Pompeii felt like a little bit like „Gladiator“ with Russel Crowe, but more than in a bad way.

If you gonna watch this movie, you get good special effects , and a bad story line with some plot holes. You already might know at the beginning of the movie, how it is gonna end - you at least gonna guess the middle „game“ of this Hollywood production.
And I feel a little bit bad for movies which have a bad story. You put millions of millions of Dollar$ into the special effects, production, actors and you put a fast-food story line in it? Why!?
.-/

Paul W.S. Anderson used the special effects too much. In those scenes, where the action is going on, the cuts were not the very best. He want to put so much action in it, that you might get a little bit confused - at least I got a little bit confused during watching.

And since I do not want to spoiler too much: a special scene where a character is dying… come on: You possible can not put more pathetic bullshit in it - can you?

Pompeii or is it spelled Pompeji (?) is getting 6 out of 10 trakt hearts. It is okay to watch this movie, if you want to turn your brain off for ~1.5 hours, but not worth to watch it a second time.

Alright, boys, picture this: I'm all set for an epic disaster movie, primed for some cinematic catastrophe. But then, out of nowhere, the real 'disaster' strikes - Milo, oh my dude, Milo! I can't continue without going wild over his abs. I mean, seriously, this guy is so ridiculously impressive that I was left in total awe, like, "Whoa, Milo, you stud!"

Now, when Milo, our charming man, graced the screen as a smoldering slave, I was already in awe. But when he walked into the arena, donned in that slave gladiator armor that showed more than it hid, it was like watching a Greek god come to life. Oh boy! His sixpack is legendary! Milo, you're like a complete eruption of hotness! I have to admit, I was totally in awe and filled with respect. I couldn't stop staring at the sheer power emanating from this guy's body. That stud is so undeniably attractive, and I couldn't be more blown away.

But let's not get too carried away with Milo's sixpack. Let's shift our focus to the love story because Milo and Cassia's chemistry is scorching. Their romance sizzles like molten rock, and it's hard not to be swept up in it.

And as the volcano roared to life, it was as if the very Earth had unleashed its wrath. The visual effects were breathtaking, capturing the catastrophic beauty and terror of a city consumed by nature's fury. It's a visual spectacle that will leave you in awe, reminding us of the sheer power of the natural world.

In short, this flick serves up the real deal - and by that, I'm talking about Milo's epic abs, a romance that's hotter than fire, and volcanic blowouts that'll leave you seriously shook. And can we talk about Milo again? Oh, you Greek god of a stud. Seriously, this dude, with those killer abs, has transformed this whole experience into an abs-olutely epic adventure! :muscle::fire::muscle:

For being a Hollywood attempt at ancient, non-American, drama this is a decent enough piece of entertainment. Unfortunately, as is too often the case when Hollywood tries to make these kind of movies these days, it is also underdeveloped, shallow and somewhat cheesy.

The movie have a decent enough cast and I have to say that their performances are generally good. At least as good as the script allows for. The story is pretty straightforward. Young slave is forced to become a gladiator and he is good at it. Beautiful woman enters the scene and Amor gets to work. Bad guy enters the scene and does what bad guys usually does to screw things up. It is a simple story which allows much freedom and which of course is spiced up quite a lot by being set against the backdrop of an exploding volcano.

However, the movie could have done a lot more with the story. Even though the special effects are miles more advanced than movies like Ben-Hur with Charlton Heston or works by Cecil B. DeMille it somehow fails to achieve the same impression of awe and grandeur. If you cut out the volcano a lot of the scenes felt just ordinary somehow.

Well, it is still a decent enough piece of entertainment. I quite liked the character of Atticus and the gladiator parts are not bad. Some of the volcano effects are reasonably impressive as well. However, why is it that Hollywood producers and directors totally lack any form of knowledge of the subjects they use in their movies? You take an exploding volcano, which in itself should be enough, and then all of a sudden you throw in a tsunami wave which movies towards the volcano. What the f…? That is just so ignorant. I do not expect historical accuracy of a movie like this but Christ, you do not have to slap the faces of the thinking part of the audience like this. The scenes where the ships were coming floating through the streets of Pompeii was also the worst special effects of the movie, regardless of the ridiculousness of the entire tsunami thing.

The end? Well, anyone who has read a few of my reviews knows that I am a sucker for happy endings so you can probably guess that I am not overly happy about this one. I guess one have to say that, at least, it was realistic though given that, once the eruption had started, there would be little way to get away from the volcano by any means available at that time.