Watching this film brings to mind several iconic pop-cultural references. Pink Floyd’s non-concert concert film Live in Pompeii, for instance. How young they all looked! Roger Waters and Dave Gilmour with long, long hair walk the empty amphitheatre holding up their guitars like gladiators all set to conquer the music arena. The fantastic ruins and eerie silence create a mesmeric soundscape for the band’s psychedelic sound. The grinning skull mosaic preserved from the ancient disaster site at the start of ‘Careful with that Axe Eugene’ seemed so apt.

Pompeii reminds one of Baron Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s 1834 novel, The Last Days of Pompeii. The book was inspired by a Russian painting in Milan (sounds very Joseph Heller-esque) and in turn inspired many movies and television shows. Pompeii takes some elements from Sergio Leone’s 1959 adaptation of the novel including the climatic gladiatorial games and the leads meeting over an out-of-control chariot. The Christian element is written out and instead of the Greek Glaucus, you have Milo, a rebellious Celt.

Kit Harington, who plays Milo, seems to have stepped out of his Jon Snow avatar from Game of Thrones into another fight — not between the Lannisters and Starks but between the Romans and Celts. You could think of the many end-of-days movies Pompeii is inspired by, throw in a dash of star-crossed lovers from Titanic and spare a thought for the poor petrified doggie among the ruins of the city.

The fact that you can think of so many things while Pompeii is playing indicates that the happenings on screen are not particularly captivating. Clichés careen across the screen colliding with improbabilities, hammy acting and atrocious dialogues.

Milo is this slave-turned-gladiator who is the last surviving Celt from his village. The evil Roman (Keifer Sutherland) who slaughtered his parents and people is back in Pompeii sneering and up to no good as he casts lascivious glances at the comely Cassia. She, however, is already making cow’s eyes at Milo because of how he broke a horse’s neck. “That was the kindest thing to do,” she says tremulously with bosom heaving. There is noble African savage, Atticus, who was promised his freedom after this one last fight. Carrie-Ann Moss as Cassia’s mom is weepy (What a fall there was Trinity!).

Remember to finish all your mind wandering before the final battle because then Pompeii moves into fourth gear and is the greatest fun. Director Paul W. S. Anderson (Resident Evil) does know to set up a fight sequence. And once the Vesuvius starts erupting in right earnest after grumbling through the film (for bad acting I suppose) Pompeii is eye-popping. The 3D is used to excellent effect with ash, lava and ginormous tidal waves laying waste the city.

The third act emphatically redeems Pompeii. Yay!

Genre: Historical /Action

Director: Paul W. S. Anderson

Cast: Kit Harington, Keifer Sutherland, Carrie Ann Moss

Storyline: Gladiator and Braveheart face off on the Titanic

Bottomline: Cheap thrills courtesy Mt Vesuvius

Upendra’s film Brahma is apparently creating box-office records. The R. Chandru directed film has become the first film of Upendra to join the Rs. 10 crore club in Kannada. And it has done it in record time. The film has managed to collect Rs. 12 crore in its first week of release according to the director. With this, Upendra joins the league of Sudeep, Darshan, Puneeth and Yash in the Rs. 10 crore club. However, most of the collection came in the first three days and the collection slumped in the following days. In the second week, the film is facing stiff competition from Ravichandran’s Krazy Star and is witnessing further fall in collections. However, due to its tremendous opening, the film has been declared a super hit. The film’s huge collection is attributed to the marketing of the film rather than its content. Brahma was released in 276 screens across Karnataka. This is the highest number of screens for any Kannada film till date.

It seems like hat trick hero Shivarajkumar is a man in a hurry. Almost every week you hear about his new films. While his last release Bhajarangi completed 50 days a while ago, it is the almost half a dozen new films of his that is making news. The actor is currently shooting for Aryan which also stars Ramya in one of her last film roles. Meanwhile, the actor posed for the photo-shoots of two more films --Manamohaka and Badshah. If that was not enough, director Manju Swaraj has announced that Shivarajkumar has given the green signal for a film titled Srikanta. Whatever the fate of his films is at the box office, the actor will be never short of offers.

Actor Yash’s injury continues to dog his new film, Gajakesari. The shooting of the film was cancelled on February 6. It was announced that the shooting will resume after a week. But even after two weeks, there is no sign of the shooting resuming. Film sources say the injury is far more severe than what they thought it was and Yash is now on four weeks rest. Accordingly, shooting for Gajakesari has to be put off for a month.

Yash injured his knee while shooting for a song for the film. The shooting was taking place in Sri Kanteerava Studio under choreographer Harsha. Believing it was a minor injury Yash continued to shoot for half a day when it became impossible to continue. Director Krishna has however started post-production work like dubbing and editing of the film. Gajakesari is one of the costliest films to be made in Kannada with costs reaching about Rs. 15 crore.

Vel Media and Abi TCS jointly present Thegidi, a crime thriller, produced by C. Senthil Kumar and written and directed by P. Ramesh. The cinematographer is Dinesh Krishnan. Leo John Paul is the editor. Nivas K. Prasanna has scored the music. The stunts are by ‘Billa’ Jagan. S.S. Murthy is the art director. The cast comprises Ashok Selvan, Janani Iyer, Jayaprakash, Jayakumar, Pradeep Nair, Rajan Iyer, Sai, Sivakumar and Soundarajan. The audio was released in the presence of producers Keyar, Srinivasan and Siva and director Nalan Kumarasamy and actor Vijay Sethupathi.

Producer C. Senthil Kumar: C.V. Kumar, who produced Soodhu Kavvum and Pizza, is my brother. When I expressed my desire to produce my own movie, he encouraged me and we read a number of scripts together before zeroing in on Thegidi. I feel I have a box office hit in my hands.

Director P. Ramesh: I am from the IT industry. I made seven short films for the Nalaya Iyakkunarshow on Kalaignar TV. I got the best director award in Season 2 of the programme. When I wanted to do a feature film, I sent my script to C.V. Kumar, who asked me to go ahead with the project right away.

Hero Ashok Selvan: This is my third movie after Soodhu Kavvum and Pizza 2-Villa. I must thank the director and the producer for giving me this opportunity. I have acted in a number of shorts films.Thegidi is an interesting subject and I am sure of its success.

Music director Nivas K. Prasanna: I started learning music at a tender age. It’s been my dream to become a music director. I am a singer cum pianist and have worked with some of the big names in the industry such as Abaswaram Ramji, Rajesh Vaidya, Shankar Mahadevan and Sudha Ragunathan. When director Ramesh heard my music, he wanted me to score the music for his first feature film which also happens to be my debut. After the release of Thegidi’s audio, I am getting a lot of good response from different quarters.

Music Highlights: There are seven songs in the album, two of which are karaoke versions. Kabilan has written four numbers — ‘Yaar Ezhudhiyadho,’ ‘Vinmeen Vithaiyil,’ ‘Kangalai Oru’ and ‘Neethane Neethane.’ The album opens with ‘Yaar Ezhudhiyadho,’ a pleasant number sung by Sathya Prakash Dharmar. Abhay Jodhpurkar teams up with Saindhavi Prakash to render the beautiful ‘Vinmeen Vithaiyil.’ Ajesh Ashok deserves praise for the haunting solo ‘Kangalai Oru.’ Shankar Mahadevan’s powerful voice shines through ‘Neethane Neethane,’ which is further enhanced by Rajesh Vaidya’s veena. Kurunji Prabha has penned ‘Neeyum Dhinam’ which is well rendered by Andrea Jeremiah.

He’s confused about their relationship status. Are they just business partners or... partners? And when she casually lets slip that that night might not have meant much, he leaps at this out with visible relief. And she’s crushed — not because she’s had sex with him and he’s not going to marry her, and not because she could be pregnant, but because something that meant so much to her means so little to him. She doesn’t regret having sex, but the fact that to him it’s just sex, nothing more.

Band Baaja Baaraat mined gold from this premise. The film was an example of how relatively standard-issue rom-com fare could be transcended — indeed, made transcendent — through terrific casting, staging and a feel for both the milieu and the material. Gokul Krishna’s remake follows the original almost beat for beat, but never does anything more.

Vaani Kapoor appears so invested in pronouncing her lines right that she hasn’t any energy left for a performance. Nani gamely allows his Telugu accent to be mocked — but the role, especially during the final declaration of love, calls for much more. The supporting characters aren’t well developed (the actress who plays Shruthi’s mother is good, though). And despite some wonderfully conversational dialogue, we’re left with the strange feeling of watching a Hindi movie dubbed in Tamil, along with the realisation that a story alone doesn’t make a movie.