Part Titanic styled doomed romance, part Gladiator styled revenge flick, and part late 90s volcano disaster film, Paul W.S. Anderson’s liberally not-ripped-from-the-history-books take on the destruction of the Italian city of Pompeii in 72 A.D. is clichéd to the hilt and unabashedly cornball, but you can’t say it isn’t hitting all of the high notes perfectly. Unfortunately, those high notes come within a film that’s a bit too pat and by the numbers to play entirely to Anderson’s strengths as a filmmaker. That doesn’t mean it isn’t a good time, though. Well, as good as the deaths of thousands of people could ultimately be, I guess.

A Celtic slave (Kit Harington) who watched his entire family brutally murdered by the Romans as a young boy is brought to the city of Pompeii for their annual festival and gladiatorial games after several convincing victories in the provinces. The Pompeii he arrives in is one in danger of losing all of its funding thanks to the rise of the new Titus ruled government in Rome, but that doesn’t really matter all that much. The young man catches the eye of the daughter (Emily Browning) of the city’s magistrate (Jared Harris), who is trying to broker a deal with a Roman senator (Keifer Sutherland) that just so happens to be the person who killed the young man’s family, but who also wants to wed his new crush. He fights for his life and then whoops that giant volcano in the background just decides to blow up.

If it sounds like I’m not taking Pompeii seriously, it’s because I don’t entirely think this movie is even meant to be taken all that seriously. Anderson has always been the kind of filmmaker who likes to give audiences exactly what they want as quickly and as often as possible, and this film is no exception to that rule. Is there any exposition? If it doesn’t sound like a badass threat, it better be delivered while someone is snapping a neck. Is there need for an explosion here? There’s always need for an explosion here. Is there such a thing as too much foreshadowing? If it isn’t happening in the first frame of the film, then what are we living for? It’s a trait in Anderson’s entire filmography that’s positively endearing, and unlike someone like Michael Bay, who often uses those same signifiers to ill, queasy effect, Anderson is nothing but diplomatic and keen to the needs of every member of the audience and not just the douchy bros cracking brews in the back of the theatre on a Friday night.

Take for example how Harington, although he’s fine in the lead, has very little to actually do once his character is established. We know all we need to know about him before his grown up form even appears on screen. It takes almost precisely three minutes to establish that this guy is a badass that lives with a code of honour and is great with horses and no more is really needed. He’s free to just be a badass.

Which thankfully leaves Browning with something to actually do, and she’s allowed to create a character that can be smarter than just a stock damsel in distress that’s more interesting than the hero. She has a past connection to the film’s villain (she left school in Rome just to get away from him), and she’s always making it look like she’s going to give in to him to spare the life of her love or her family before almost always at the last second finding a new and clever way to show just how much of an imbecile he is.

The two leads are actually allowed the room within this admittedly quite cockamamie story to just play natural acting and sounding human beings instead of constantly playing up the idea that they’re romantic equals. And that’s because once the sword fights start piling up and the ash starts raining down upon the land, precisely none of it will matter. They are the perfect leads for a film that’s ultimately this inconsequential by design. There’s also a special shout outs in order to Sutherland who hams it up to the Gods and gets in touch with his inner Malcolm McDowell as the chief villain that isn’t an enormous mountain, and to Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as a fellow gladiator on the verge of winning his own freedom who gets all the tough guy and philosophical lines in the screenplay.

I don’t say “inconsequential” as a slight against the entertainment value of the picture, but in terms of how you can see everything coming from miles off, which kind of dampens one of the things that would have made this a higher tier departure for Anderson as a filmmaker. He’s always at his best when his story carries with it a degree of unpredictability. His Resident Evil movies and particularly his blissfully loony Three Musketeers adaptation were so imminently enjoyable because they’re almost impossible to tell where they are headed from scene to scene. Here, the script couldn’t be more rote and plodding, which means Anderson has to pull out every potential trick in his bag to try and make the material seem as epic as the production should appear on paper. It seems like more of a work for hire gig than something he could firmly put some kind of authorial stamp on, but it’s still a decent workman like knock-off blockbuster that at least has the sense to make sure it’s getting every little bit of its formula right.

But in those moments where Anderson has nothing left to pull out of his bag of tricks, he’s actually quite diplomatic in letting his production designers and visual effects artists find ways of having fun. He always wants to make sure that people always have something to look at (although maybe not in 3D this time, which was incredibly murky and added nothing even in the climactic chaos). By the time ol’ Vesuvius blows its stack, the audience has probably reached the breaking point with the story, and Anderson wisely just gives over to spectacle and hand to hand combat. The fights that include a whole bunch of people are kind of disappointing and edited too quickly so as to avoid any rating worse than a PG-13, but the one-on-one stuff is actually quite impressive. As for the destruction, the sight of entire castles crumbling into the sea and tidal waves wiping out sections of the city are quite striking.

It’s certainly in line with Anderson’s ability to produce a great looking B-movie, but it’s hard not to wish that it was just a tad bit crazier. It’s still quite enjoyable and it definitely delivers all of its genre conventions in the most precise and economic ways possible while letting the whole rest of the film around the script be as crazed as possible. There’s a lot of fun to be had for people who just want to kick back and watch some throats get slit or have a simplistic dime store romance play out in a historical setting where everyone gets to be a badass. There’s a time and place for movies like this, and while Anderson has admittedly made better examples of this kind of film than Pompeii, he’s still one of the best people to turn to for a good bit of silly fun.