…the dormant volcano Vesuvius has the last say and Pompeii (remember The Last Days Of Ponpeii, starring Steve Reeves?) and history is well captured. Maybe the revival of those 1950s classics like Quo Vadis and Ben Hur give it an edge over the more weighty Monuments Men. Well, that’s where Einstein’s theory of relativity comes in!

Anderson’s film is engrossing with the tension building steadily, from the opening sequence’s Roman massacre of a Celtic rebellion in Londinium, Brittany through the emotional drama of the star-crossed, wracked by the longing for freedom and love, before the fury of the volcanic Vesuvius explodes upon all, free citizenry, gladiators and slaves.

Pompeii is just like Anderson’s films of the past ten years – aggressively stupid, full of CGI and bland characters, with a script that is somehow neither interesting nor laughably bad. It’s something akin to Gladiator meeting a Roland Emmerich movie, with a dash of Anderson’s trademark lack of subtlety and inability to craft good action sequences.

The script by Janet Scott Batchler, Lee Batchler and Michael Robert Johnson, is crisp and focused. The tension is carefully and precisely mounted to construct the doomsday effect. Though the event is predictable, the look and feel of Glen MacPherson’s visuals in 3D is enchanting. They beautifully merge with computer generated special effects of the volcanic eruption, the tsunami and the submerging of the land. The film is worth a watch for being a grand visual spectacle.

You don’t go to a movie with a lot of expectations from the director of the Mortal Kombat and Resident Evil franchise. It helps because Pompeii is one of those run of mill films that involves slaves, kings, Romans, special effects and a natural disaster. The story is lackluster and to add to it, the performances are no great shakes either.

Pompeii is grand and lavish in visuals but poor on content.

From a die-hard situation to an utterly-butterly melodrama, Pompeii ended in most cheesiest way ever possible. The final scene where Milo and Cassia strikes a pose can put Disney movies to shame.

Pompeii is one of those rare films for which I am glad that a 3D format was used. If cheesy, overdone, masala flicks are your kind of fare, this is your kind of film. For the rest of us, Pompeii just blows.

The love story itself is forgettable and cheesy. But that is only incidental compared to what you can watch this movie for – its fight scenes and cataclysmic climax, both produced and recreated in good detail.

Pompeii is a disaster movie, so it’s not as though anyone should expect much by way of logic or narrative, but you do expect some spectacles.