Set in 79 A.D., POMPEII tells the epic story of Milo (Kit Harington), a slave turned invincible gladiator who finds himself in a race against time to save his true love Cassia (Emily Browning), the beautiful daughter of a wealthy merchant who has been unwillingly betrothed to a corrupt Roman Senator. As Mount Vesuvius erupts in a torrent of blazing lava, Milo must fight his way out of the arena in order to save his beloved as the once magnificent Pompeii crumbles around him.

I love a good disaster movie, like 2012, and this one delivered on special effects. One issue was it took a while to get started. I know you need to establish back stories and but the beginning was boring and really only got good when Milo and Atticus were fighting in the arena.

The villa by the sea falling down the cliff was pretty spectacular, although when Milo says “we have to get to the harbour”, well, you basically are, just jump off the cliff. That would have been the best and easiest option since look what happened when you didn’t take it.

I do love volcanoes and good to see the bad guys get their comeuppance.

The other issue was that in real life this didn’t happen so quickly, it happened over hours and went through each process. Whereas this basically went boom and it all happened after that. A lot of people, when the dust cloud came down fled to their homes to seek possessions. Many left, but others went to their basements to wait it out as no one really knew what the hell the volcano was or did. They just knew it rumbled occasionally and not much else.

And in all reality, it had nothing to do with the Gods as they believed in. Just the one big God itself in the form of Mother Nature.

Emily Browning’s character, why didn’t she just jump from the chariot instead of trying to stop Keifer? He wouldn’t have known she’d jumped off and he couldn’t have stopped the chariot long enough to get her. And there was no way she survived that chariot flying through the air and smacking into the wall. Get real people!

The end was also interesting. I certainly didn’t expect it to end like that but it looked like the movie was set around real life figures found in the aftermath.

I’d love to visit Italy and travel through Rome and Pompeii one day.

I give it 7 out of 10

In 1999, the Janjira nuclear plant was mysteriously destroyed with most hands lost including supervisor Joe Brody’s wife. Years later, Joe’s son, Ford, a US Navy ordnance disposal officer, must go to Japan to help his estranged father who obsessively searches for the truth of the incident. In doing so, father and son discover the disaster’s secret cause on the wreck’s very grounds. This enables them to witness the reawakening of a terrible threat to all of Humanity, which is made all the worse with a second secret revival elsewhere. Against this cataclysm, the only hope for the world may be Godzilla, but the challenge for the King of the Monsters will be great even as Humanity struggles to understand the destructive ally they have.

I’ve seen some of the old movies on tv, talk about Japanese schlock, and have seen the Matthew Broderick version a couple of time and now it has been re-booted again. But so much of it was filmed at night I could barely see anything.

A big deal was made out of Bryan Cranston being in the movie but he’s dead 45 minutes in. And it’s not just a movie about Godzilla, like the Matthew Broderick one, it’s gone back to the heyday of Godzilla movies where he defeated every other mutant animal that came his way. There were two other mutants besides him and in the end, Godzilla won and went on his merry way, as usual.

What always annoys me about these movies is nothing is ever said of the bill that’s about to be footed for the repairs to all of the cities and towns these things destroy.

I found it boring, completely over publicised and given wayyy to much credit, I give it 4 out of 10.