I saw The Expendables with a friend who was not entirely sober at the time. As a result, every time Sylvester Stallone appeared on screen, he shouted, "Yo Adrian!" at the screen. I recount this experience because I found myself saying, "You know nothing John Snow," every time Kit Harington appeared on screen in this movie.
Kit is the main character, and he is most often referred to as "The Celt." His actual name is Milo, but that's not exactly an Irish name, is it? Well, he doesn't look particularly Irish, either. He watches Kiefer Sutherland order the death of his parents and all of the villagers at his home in Ireland before he is carted off to be a gladiator.
This brings us to the crux of the movie; it is as if they tried to remake Gladiator, but they wanted to add the destruction of the city into the story. Unfortunately, it comes off as a "me too" movie. All of the actors are slightly worse than their Gladiator counterparts, so it has the feel of a movie that would have been produced by a smaller production studio at the same time as a big movie that had a similar subject.
Speaking of Kiefer Sutherland, though, he tries to play a slightly effeminate Roman senator. We get a lot of sense through the entire movie that he wields power instead of a sword, but there is an entirely predictable sword fight that he demonstrates mastery of fighting skills that the many, many gladiators that Kit has killed didn't come close to.
Emily Browning was very good in the stylish and spectacular movie Sucker Punch. In this movie, however, she is little more than a required love interest with little acting to do and almost no personality. She is an intensely one-dimensional character, and she couldn't do anything with it.
Likewise, Carrie-Anne Moss was here to be pretty and to bring a recognizable name in to draw an audience. I'm not sure she got more than 60 seconds worth of screen time.
Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje was really the only other major character to get a bunch of screen time. He was the big, black guy who befriends our hero despite the fact that they will have to fight each other to the death. He plays his character well, but he's ancillary, and I didn't find myself caring all that much if he were to die.
The special effects of the destruction of Pompeii was not center stage when it was actually happening. It served as a backdrop for character interaction that was not nearly as interesting. It's a shame, too, as the effects were actually really good.
Directing was not great
Acting was pretty bad
Story was rehashed
Dialog was weak
Effects were very good
1.5/5