Paul W.S. Anderson's Pompeii - fun, fire and farce

The good (or bad) thing about a Paul W.S. Anderson movie, depending on your point of view, is that there are few major surprises; you pretty much know what you're in for before the titles roll. Whether it involves marauding zombies (Resident Evil), arcade-style kung fu ( Mortal Kombat) or swash-buckling sword play (The Three Musketeers), you're not likely to get much more than simple, escapist pleasure. What you will get are explosions, a little romance, some bad guys chasing good guys and plenty of choreographed scrapping. Please check your brain in at the door before entering.

With big budget sword and sandal blockbuster (Fox Movies Premium, Saturday, 9pm), Anderson turns his attention to the Roman Empire. Part Gladiator part Titanic, it stars Game of Thrones hunk Kit Harington (above) as Milo, the six-packed slave who falls for noblewoman Cassia (Emily Browning, Sucker Punch) after he kindly kills her horse (it's always the unusual chat-up lines that work best, huh?). The baddie comes in the shape of Senator Corvus (Kiefer Sutherland, 24), who not only has designs on Cassia, but is also the one who slaughtered Milo's family (bloody typical!).

Now Milo must join forces with his former rival, gladiatorial slave Atticus (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Lost), to whack 'n' slash a ridiculous amount of inept Roman soldiers before rescuing his true love and exacting revenge for his slain parents.

If you're not familiar with the history of Pompeii, it won't take you long to figure out how it's all going to end. Almost every scene includes a pan out to the large rumbling volcano, Mount Vesuvius, slowly awakening in the not-far-enough-away distance. Before long the mountain is hurling fireballs on the doomed town.

Harington and Browning happily do all the script asks of them, which is not a great deal, while Sutherland appears to plays the evil Corvus with somebody else's teeth in. His strangely distracting accent is about as menacing as a moody badger and leaves one wondering when he will instruct his henchmen to "Welease Woderwick!"

Pompeii is a disaster epic bereft of any real suspense or shock but as an action-by-numbers B-movie goes, it's a guilty and garish sword-swinging pleasure.