In a nutshell: Mount Vesuvius, a volcano in southern Italy, erupted in A.D. 79, obliterating the nearby city of Pompeii and leaving the baked corpses of its residents preserved in thick coats of volcanic ash.

That's about it. Given the swift finality of this event, any movie about it must consist largely of prologue. So the writers of the new movie "Pompeii" have devised a love story, played out amid much gladiatorial combat, to lead us up to the crowning cataclysm. Fine. But the participation of director Paul W.S. Anderson in this project will stir wariness in some prospective viewers; this is the proud hack responsible for the "Resident Evil" films, as well as "AVP: Alien vs. Predator" and a notably knuckleheaded "Death Race" remake.

But Anderson's unfeigned enthusiasm for fantasy schlock and bombastic digital effects turns out to be a pretty good match for this generic material. He is unfazed by the silliness of the love story — a star-crossed union of hunky slave and noble beauty — and he revels in the delirious mayhem by which it's surrounded. (A 3-D traditionalist, he's delighted to fling boulders, swords and flinders straight out into our faces.)

The movie begins in Britannia in A.D. 62, with a Celtic revolt being brutally quelled by Roman soldiers led by the sneering Corvus (Kiefer Sutherland), who dispatches two rebels before the eyes of their young son, Milo. The kid is clapped into chains and grows up to become "Game of Thrones" heartthrob Kit Harington. After distinguishing himself in some preliminary gladiatorial action, Milo is dragged off to the death-match capital of Pompeii. Along the way, he encounters the dainty Cassia (Emily Browning of "Sucker Punch"), whose horse has foundered on a country road. Milo, a horse whisperer of sorts, helpfully snaps the doomed beast's neck, and he and Cassia fall instantly in love. Whatever.

In Pompeii, Milo is consigned to the murky slave cells, where he meets champion gladiator Atticus (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje of "Thor: The Dark World"). They are antagonists at first but naturally become buddies. Meanwhile, Corvus, now a Roman senator, has come to town to do some business with local real estate magnate Severus (Jared Harris). He also has his eye on Severus' daughter — Cassia, of course — and soon crosses paths with Milo, who bears an understandable grudge against the man who killed his parents.

All of this plot boilerplate is goosed along by frequent cutaways to nearby Vesuvius as it rumbles and glows and finally explodes, spewing rocks and lava and raining down fireballs on the terrified Pompeians. The resulting chaos is impressively over-the-top, and director Anderson — now completely in his element — doubles down by bringing in a CGI tidal wave to crash through the narrow streets. As gaudy genre uproar goes, this isn't bad.

Anderson also devises several lively arena battles — especially a long one in which a handful of slave gladiators triumphantly butt kick a small army of hateful Roman soldiers. And he's clearly a connoisseur of bad dialogue. At one point, a tubby aristocrat complains, "You dragged me from a perfectly good brothel for this?" At another, Sutherland actually unleashes the line, "Kill them all!" Does it get much better than this?

Well, of course it does; "Pompeii" withers in the long shadows of "Gladiator" and "Spartacus." But — a key point here — it doesn't get much better in February.

'Maladies'

Last year, the hyper-industrious James Franco affixed his name to 16 films — features, shorts, documentaries — as an actor, director, writer, producer and/or cinematographer. All of that in addition to his well-publicized ancillary undertakings (being a painter, a poet, a musician, a teacher and a Yale Ph.D. candidate). The man is inexhaustible. Unfortunately, we are not.

Despite his celebrated intellect, "Maladies," Franco's latest film — the first of at least a dozen due out this year — is the worst sort of fake art movie, thuddingly pretentious and unbounded in its egocentricity. The picture was written and directed by New York multimedia artist Carter. Five years ago, Franco and Carter collaborated on another film, called "Erased James Franco." I haven't seen that one and don't know anyone who has. Apparently, it's 65 minutes of Franco mumbling his way through bits of dialogue from some of his many past roles. In an interview with The Guardian, Carter said, "It's much more interesting to talk about the movie than actually see it." A brief YouTube clip would seem to affirm this.

"Maladies" is similarly more interesting to talk about than to see, although barely. Franco plays James, an obsessive-compulsive character who lives with his odd sister (Fallon Goodson) and his friend Catherine (Catherine Keener) in a dreary beach town. James is a former actor who spent four years on a TV soap opera. (Franco spent four years playing a recurrent character called Franco on "General Hospital.") Now he's trying to be a writer. Catherine is a painter of some sort, lately enamored of Rorschach blots. The sister doesn't say much.

The movie is a clutter of nonevents. There's much discussion about James going to the kitchen to bring back a glass of water. ("I've always found this walk from the kitchen to the living room confusing.") There are various meanderings on a wintry beach, and there's quite a bit of business with shaving foam, for some reason, as well as a number of vapid observations about the mystery of art. ("There was a day when there was no 'Moby-Dick.'" James says. "And then there was.")

The characters are the sketchiest of personality doodles. Catherine dresses as a man (complete with penciled-on mustache) whenever she ventures outdoors; the sole purpose of this meaningless eccentricity would appear to be an encounter she has in a diner with Alan Cumming (embarrassing himself in a tiny cameo), who calls her a "disgusting man-lady." There's also a timid neighbor named Delmar (David Strathairn in a melancholy cardigan), who spends his time watching installments of James' old soap opera on TV. (James occasionally savors these reruns of actual Franco performances, as well.) When James is importuned by local police at one point, Delmar rushes to the scene, exclaiming, "I'm his aunt!" Is there any way that '70s cult leader Jim Jones could be slotted into this nonsense? Yes.

As if all of the above weren't bad enough — and it really, really is — there's also a narrator, whose oily voice-overs intrude from time to time to say things such as, "Do you hear voices, James?" (These interjections are delivered by Ken Scott, who also narrates the Animal Planet series "Finding Bigfoot.")

It's hard to imagine that the actors here — with the possible exception of one — aren't mortified by this movie. It's like a workshop exercise that will clearly never make it to the stage, with philosophical observations as deep as a puddle of syrup. Toward the end, James says, "I want to be thoughtful — full of thoughts." Keep trying, I guess.

Kurt Loder is the film critic for Reason Online. To find out more about Kurt Loder and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.