I was rather hoping that this would turn out to be a movie adaptation of Robert Harris's excellent novel of the same name - but sadly no. This is a beautiful example of a movie written by a committee - a tick-box list of exciting bits, but no plot and minimal character, with bags of absolutely shameless ripping off of other, better, movies.

Kit Harrington (the cute one from Game of Thrones) must have hoped this would be his big movie breakthrough, but as it turns out it's just another opportunity to do his dark brooding expression, only this time he can show off his very impressive six-pack instead of being smothered in smelly black furs. The FX are spectacular, though the real eruption did not of course feature either great balls of fire or a tsunami, but the rather less photogenic pyroclastic cloud, which buried the town in up to 25m of ash and pumice.

What are the good bits? Well, the reconstruction of Pompeii is actually excellent, and all those lifestyle details like food and fashion and weapons and furniture seem pretty accurate. I guess it's worth going for that. The committee also took the brave decision to nix any potential sequels by killing absolutely everybody in the end. But I'm afraid the dialogue is utter pants.