"No warning. No escape."
In 79 A.D., Milo, a slave turned gladiator, finds himself in a race against time to save his true love Cassia, 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.
Kit Harington
Milo
Emily Browning
Cassia
Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje
Atticus
Kiefer Sutherland
Corvus
Carrie-Anne Moss
Aurelia
Jared Harris
Severus
Jessica Lucas
Ariadne
Sasha Roiz
Proculus
Currie Graham
Bellator
In 79 A.D., Milo, a slave turned gladiator, finds himself in a race against time to save his true love Cassia, 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.
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.
Years after witnessing the death of the revered hero Maximus at the hands of his uncle, Lucius is forced to enter the Colosseum after his home is conquered by the tyrannical Emperors who now lead Rome with an iron fist. With rage in his heart and the future of the Empire at stake, Lucius must look to his past to find strength and honor to return the glory of Rome to its people.
After the death of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, his devious son takes power and demotes Maximus, one of Rome's most capable generals who Marcus preferred. Eventually, Maximus is forced to become a gladiator and battle to the death against other men for the amusement of paying audiences.
A chronicle of the Cristeros War (1926-1929), which was touched off by a rebellion against the Mexican government's attempt to secularize the country.
A horde of rampaging warriors massacre the parents of young Conan and enslave the young child for years on The Wheel of Pain. As the sole survivor of the childhood massacre, Conan is released from slavery and taught the ancient arts of fighting. Transforming himself into a killing machine, Conan travels into the wilderness to seek vengeance on Thulsa Doom, the man responsible for killing his family. In the wilderness, Conan takes up with the thieves Valeria and Subotai. The group comes upon King Osric, who wants the trio of warriors to help rescue his daughter who has joined Doom in the hills.
Noreno, a half-Roman, is entrusted with the mission of crossing the snowy mountains of Armenia, swarming with Parthian patrols, to seek help for his slowly dying men.
Enraged at the slaughter of Murron, his new bride and childhood love, Scottish warrior William Wallace slays a platoon of the local English lord's soldiers. This leads the village to revolt and, eventually, the entire country to rise up against English rule.
Conan is commissioned by the evil queen Taramis to safely escort a teen princess and her powerful bodyguard to a far away castle to retrieve the magic Horn of Dagoth. Unknown to Conan, the queen plans to sacrifice the princess when she returns and inherit her kingdom after the bodyguard kills Conan. The queen's plans fail to take into consideration Conan's strength and cunning and the abilities of his sidekicks: the eccentric wizard Akiro, the warrior woman Zula, and the inept Malak. Together the hero and his allies must defeat both mortal and supernatural foes in this voyage to sword-and-sorcery land.
After his wife dies, a blacksmith named Balian is thrust into royalty, political intrigue and bloody holy wars during the Crusades.
In the year 1215, the rebel barons of England have forced their despised King John to put his royal seal on the Magna Carta, a seminal document that upheld the rights of free men. Yet within months of pledging himself to the great charter, the King reneged on his word and assembled a mercenary army on the south coast of England with the intention of bringing the barons and the country back under his tyrannical rule. Barring his way stood the mighty Rochester castle, a place that would become the symbol of the rebel's momentous struggle for justice and freedom.
A band of medieval mercenaries take revenge on a noble Lord who cheated them by kidnapping his son's fiancée. As the plague and warfare cut a swathe of destruction throughout the land, the mercenaries hole up in a castle and await their fate.