Pompeii

  “You could hear the shrieks of women, the wailing of infants, and the shouting of men; some were calling their parents, others their children or their wives, trying to recognize them by their voices. People bewailed their own fate or that of their relatives, and there were some who prayed for death in their terror of dying. Many besought the aid of the gods, but still more imagined there were no gods left, and that the universe was plunged into eternal darkness for evermore.” – Pliny the Younger. Warning: This post contains too much sarcasm and dislike towards the movie.

Pompeii is one of those movies that I wanted to love, but it didn’t happen. Special effects were pretty decent, the hero backstory not so much -but most aren’t because most directors, not filmmakers, directors use same the same base over and over again. They just change names and events, but just by watching the first twenty minutes of this kind of movie, you already have an idea that hero has a tortured past, who’s the love interest, the hero’s friend who probably wanted to kill him at the beginning but somehow ended up helping him and all those things.

Cassia, the hero’s love interest, was a girl that spent years in Rome, and wasn’t a conformist woman which I really I like when executed well, however, Cassia ended up being a naïve-petulant child every time she said something “authoritative.” And, of course, she was used just too add more story to the nonexistent badass plot.

I didn’t like the romance in here. It seems like every hero needs a helpless woman to save all the time because I guess that thickens the plot; people might feel more involved and root for them until the very end. Well, it doesn’t. I believe with all my heart that the film was better off without some kind of insta-love that we can view nowadays in most Young Adult books. I’m sick and tired of it. It isn’t cute, it isn’t real, it makes you look like a teenager who’s going through a hormonal phase. It needs to stop. Now, the writing… Way to ruin the story, suckers. So, this is very important because although I thought the film in general had a great pace, but sometimes what happens doesn’t make really sense or adds up to the story except in stupidity! Let’s talk about this scene first: So Cassia’s horse was scared as heck because animals can feel when something isn’t right, which in this case was the volcano beginning to stir. Cassia doesn’t know how to control his own pet because… because… if she does then Milo, the hero, wouldn’t have a justification to get beaten up after it. Cassia finds Milo and, I guess, explains the problem to him -though the scene didn’t exist. Milo enters the stable, sees the horse, whispers to him love promises and the horse calms down. Then Cassia enters the stable too because yes, and wonders how our hero Calmed her own horse down, and he replies dramatically: “My family were horsemen.” Or something similar. That’s it, that’s the answer, and there’s no more. If your family were horsemen you automatically become a horse whisperer because, well, all know those traits are just part of your DNA and makes you all mysterious and interesting. After they speak just a little bit more, Milo offers Cassia to ride with him and she accepts. The horse gets out of the stable as if the devil is chasing after him, and they stop in some hill because… because… otherwise, you don’t give enough time to the guards to capture you, duh. Cassia is all like: “You’re hot, let’s go,” while Milo is like “If they find us together, you will get your booty smacked for real,” then Cassia is like: “you should go alone then,” and Milo: “I won’t leave you alone,” and just when they’re about to kiss All Pompeii and Roman guards find them and guess what!!! Milo gets whipped instead of killed because Cassia pleaded for his life. Such a good woman, such good writing. Why in the world did they ride the horse away if they knew they were going to get into trouble? I DON’T KNOW, and at that point I couldn’t care, and I was waiting for more. It was a pathetic scene that showed the two lovebirds together for no reason in particular. That, I call amateur writing or fan-fictions which are based in personal fantasies.

Other scenes that bothered the heck out of me, was when Cassia’s mom was dying and tells Milo the address with zip code included of where Cassia was so he could save her before the volcano got her. The woman dies after she delivers the message, HOW CONVENIENT

Now… a real question here. What would have happened IF Milo hadn’t know about Cassia being in the closest house to the volcano? It has to be the closest one because it adds drama, and makes the story more interesting of course. Would a coherent person save another one in this kind of situation? Because what first comes to mind is ‘heck no’. Why? Because.. 1)they don’t really know each other

2)at that point they had spent a maximum of 10 minutes during the whole movie. There was no way in this world they were already in love

3)he was a warrior, yet he had zero survival skill when it came to girls

4)all the choices are correct

Another thing that bothered me were the characters taking their damn time doing stuff while the volcano was killing everything on its path. When a volcano starts to erupt the first thing I would think would be “I need to get the fuck away somehow, and I cannot waste any time,” but our beautiful characters in here didn’t care about time at all!!! They enjoyed the scenery every time they would arrive at some place. After all, nothing like a pile of ashes, fire, and dead people to get your attention and make you spend at least 5 vital minutes of your life just staring at it. They just don’t appreciate time! That’s why Cassia’s father got killed. Well, that and because he was a dumbass who couldn’t held a dagger properly. Once again, poor writing! Predictable and Yucky.

The acting? MEH. It could have been better, it could have been worse. For me the star there was this guy:

Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje

I loved his character completely. We don’t really know too much about his past and I wished we could because he was so down to earth. His motives, his faith, his honesty, bravery and determination make you care for this character more than you should. I consider he needed to be the main character and the others just some kind of cheap sidekicks.

Kit Harrington which played Milo, the hero, well, I’m a fan of Game of Thrones and I have this bad habit that once an actor “marks” my life playing a certain role, I cannot help but seeing them as such character. For example, for me, Daniel Radcliffe will always be Harry Potter until another role of his changes my life completely hahaha. So, when I watched Kit, I imagined he was Jon Snow because the characters are pretty similar. I just couldn’t help it, and he seemed to use the same base for both roles.

What it bothers me yet intrigues me is the kiss at the end. I don’t know if the director had made and alternate ending that didn’t involve the hero in some kind of passionate kiss while Pompeii was erupting, literally, but I would pay to see one without the cheesy romance. I mean, I liked the kiss while the world was ending lol after all I’m a girl and I love romantic stuff. Nevertheless, if I were Milo I would have so many choices just to save my life and my friend’s instead of having a crush for some girl that at the end would kill me. I think to myself, that maybe and only maybe the director wanted to end the movie with a kiss as a symbol of what really happened. Something beautiful and real got destroyed, but at the same time lives eternally.

And I think that just because I like to make myself feel better about it hahaha who knows? Maybe I’m right, maybe I’m wrong, maybe there’s no real answer or symbolism behind all this. However, I insist, it could have been a great story about survival which dead or not would have been epic, yet this, this changed everything.

Finally, I will leave you with a couple of pictures, so you can appreciate the real Pompei people that perished all those years ago. (Nowadays is written with just one ‘i’)

  And extra info if you’re interested to know the real history: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pompeii