Movie reviews: Pompeii, Blue Ruin, Run & Jump

Gladiators, star-crossed lovers, corrupt Roman senators and an exploding volcano: Pompeii (12A) would seem to have it all. Kit Harington stars as Milo, enslaved as a boy when the Roman legions conquered Britain and now trained to fight — and die — as a gladiator in the arena at Pompeii. Milo’s hatred of the Roman ruling classes only increases when he falls for Cassia (Emily Browning), a refined young lady who is being pursued by the lecherous Roman senator Corvus (Keifer Sutherland) and is about to be sacrificed on the altar of her father’s business interests. As the simmering Vesuvius (spoiler alert!) begins to erupt, can Milo free himself from his shackles and save the woman he loves? Paul WS Anderson’s swords-and-sandal drama is a handsome movie to watch, rich in period detail and ambitious in its desire to create a story on an epic scale. Unfortunately, you may want to watch it with the sound turned down: the dialogue is at times hilariously stilted and forced, while the delivery by the leading players leaves a lot to be desired. Harington is at his beefcake best during the implausible but well-choreographed gladiatorial sequences, and Sutherland appears to relish his role as the pompous, malicious and thoroughly irredeemable villain, but in the more intimate moments where we might emotionally bond with the characters, there is only the clumsy grinding of well-worn cliché. The cataclysmic explosion is visually impressive when it finally arrives, but — and it’s not every day you get to say this about a volcanic eruption — it is too little and far too late.

Blue Ruin (16s) opens with homeless man Dwight (Macon Blair) being told by the police that the man who murdered his parents is about to be released from prison, and the noir-ish inevitability of Jeremy Saulnier’s revenge drama is immediately established, as Dwight slowly but surely sets his sights on an eye-for-an-eye retribution. It’s a subtle, nuanced story: Dwight’s beard when we first meet him is as full-blown as any Old Testament prophet’s, but as he shaves himself smooth, and changes his hobo’s rags for the buttoned-down clothes that will allow him to disguise himself as a normal member of civilised society, he has already strayed into the realms of social taboo. The twist that gives the story a stomach-clenching tension is the fact that Dwight is far removed from the genre’s cliché of the gun-toting hero (or anti-hero) as he pits himself against a lethal backwoods clan that possesses a small armoury; instead, sad-eyed Dwight is just an ordinary man whose life has been devastated by his parents’ murder and who finds himself driven by grief to take almost unthinkably desperate measures. Blair delivers a stunning performance, completely believable as a damaged and emotionally inarticulate man who loathes violence but believes in fighting fire with fire, regardless of the personal consequences. Sinuously twisting and turning, Blue Ruin is heartbreakingly fatalistic, and an unusually profound and enthralling thriller.