Cert 12A
104 mins
BBFC advice: Contains moderate violence and threat
So what was Paul WS Anderson trying to achieve with Pompeii?
Did he want it to be a sword-crunching epic of the style of Gladiator.
Or was he trying to conjure up a classic disaster movie with echoes of Volcano?
Or maybe he was going for the old-fashioned period love story?
Possibly he was having a go at combining all three.
Either way, he has created a turkey which is so big it would sate a small country.
Before, I critique Pompeii's weaknesses, I should point out that its special effects earn it three marks on their own.
They are admirably spectacular. I have never seen balls of rock spewed from a volcano's crater with quite as much venom.
The remainder of the movie, however, does not have one positive attribute, in my opinion.
Its most lamentable feature is the love triangle involving Kiefer Sutherland as a powerful Roman senator, Emily Browning as the daughter of Pompeii's ruler (Jared Harris) and a Celtic slave (Kit Harington).
Yes, that's correct. As boulders are falling from the sky and a coliseum crumbles, Kiefer demands, in an appalling British accent, the hand of a girl half his age.
Meanwhile, his aristocratic fancy has had her head turned by a bit of rough who, in real life, wouldn't be able to speak the same language yet alone be a match for her social status.
It is so corny it might as well be filmed in yellow.
As luck would have it, during the most intense love scenes, the fiery rockfalls abate in time for the
camera to alight upon Browning's pout or Harington's six pack.
Alongside all of this nonsense, Harington somehow becomes the darling of Pompeii, thanks to a brief exertion in the coliseum where he and a new-found pal (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) manage to defeat a virtual battalion of better armed opponents.
The most amazing feat is that scarcely a hair on Harington's finely coiffured head falls out of place. Mind you, the same could be said of Browning even as molten lava is being belched in her direction.
Perhaps it is meant to be an old fashioned cinematic romance - but the fact is that it is just slushy ill though-out nonsense.
In fact, it is every bit as bad as Anderson's woeful Three Musketeers three years ago.
Laughs: none
Jumps: none
Vomit: none
Nudity: none
Overall rating: 3/10