Paul W.S. Anderson‘s Pompeii (Sony, 2.21) is obviously CG-driven exploitation schlock aimed at the submentals. What else to expect from the low-rent director and producers (Jeremy Bolt, Don Carmody) behind Resident Evil: Afterlife? The CG alone is cartoonishly excessive. (There is nothing more loathsome than CG that doesn’t make the slightest effort to look organic — that flaunts its digital nature.) Imagine if Roman Polanski‘s Pompeii project, based on Robert Harris’s historical novel, had made it to the screen. Imagine a semi-realistic recreation of what ancient Pompeii and the Mt. Vesuvius disaster of A.D. 79 really looked and sounded like. Literate dialogue, believable characters, etc. Or if that reported Sony minseries, also based on the Harris novel that Robert Towne (Chinatown, The Firm) adapting, had been brought to fruition. A shame all around.