One of the box covers for 'Apocalypse
Pompeii' has some kind of man all burnt up in lava looking
like a zombie. That's not in this movie… but it should
be. This would be another free movie concept from your
friends at the FCU, but how about Lava Zombies! Tell me
that doesn't sound like all kinds of awesome? Would you
like to deal with a Lava Zombie? I know I
wouldn't. Somebody get to work on that… and since this
is in print, expect to be sued the minute it gets
released. I don't want to sue, but it is what Americans
do.
No, we don't have Lava Zombies, as it looks like our friends
at The Asylum are mockbusting the big budget movie 'Pompeii',
but with this movie taking place in modern times instead of 79
A.D., because that would be expensive. Retired special
ops badass Jeff Pierce (Adrian Paul) is in Italy to interview
for some top lop level job, and he brought his wife Lynne
(Jhey Castles) and daughter Mykaela (Georgina Beedle) along
for the ride. The wife and kid are going to check
the ruins of Pompeii while the always nervous Jeff does his
job interview. Then the ground trembles like an
earthquake, Jeff figures its bad and the family should stick
around, but we are assured that this happens all the time in
Italy… no problems. Family goes to the Pompeii ruins.
No sooner than they get there does Pompeii erupts, killing
tourists like it's nobody's business. And while
this is really bad, the good news is that we have Mykaela on
board and she's blessed with the Volcano Knowledge Gene.
I mean this top heavy teenage girl knows everything about
everything that has anything to do with volcanoes. She
explained why, but we're not going to get into all of that.
Back in the city, Jeff needs to get
Pompeii to rescue his family, and all he needs is a
helicopter, but the jerk off Italians said 'no'. So he
went to talk to his boy Col. Dillard as played by the
legendary John Rhys Davies, whom Dillard owes a debt to.
Something about Kandahar. Now astute Asylum
film watchers will surely notice that Mr.
Davies also played a Col. Dillard in the movie '100 degrees
Below Zero', and he owed a debt to that clown too. Col.
Dillard is pretty pathetic when you think about it,
considering how many times he needed his life saved in
'Kandahar, or Iraq, or Myanmar. I'm also guessing Mr.
Davies did not change clothes for these roles, one being shot
in the day with Jeff Fahey, the other shot later in the
afternoon with Adrian Paul. That's an easy 500 bucks for
Mr. Davies right there.
Anyway, Dillard helps by getting The Band back together, these
being Jeff's fellow Special Ops bad asses who often say stuff
like… 'Reminds me of that op in Kandahar…' and stuff like
that. Lot of stuff went down in Kandahar. These
four have to use their super stealth techniques and steal a
helicopter. That, in itself was some highbrow comedy
like I've rarely seen, considering their Super Stealth
techniques involved running in open fields in broad daylight
and dodging bullets by outrunning them. It was
outstanding.
Back in Pompeii, our tourist are getting picked off one by one
via flying hot rocks, heat waves, evil gas, and flowing lava…
all which could've been avoided had they listened to the
teenager with the volcano knowledge, but what can you
do? Mom and baby girl take solace in knowing that Dad
has to be on his way. Because rescuing people is what he
does. Besides, this op is eerily similar to the one
Kandahar, so I don't see no problems.
*Deep sigh*… You want to know what the problem is with
'Apocalypse Pompeii'? It's not that it's terrible…
because it is… it's not that the acting is somewhat less than
desirable… because it is… it's not that the special effects or
pacing is suspect… because you know it is. The problem
is that we've seen nearly this exact same movie so many times
before from our friends at The Asylum. 'Apocalypse
Pompeii' is not all that different from '500MPH Storm', which
is no different from '40 Days and Nights' which is no
different from '100 Degrees Below Zero', which varies little
from '2012: Ice Age'. These movies are almost exactly
the same in story, pacing, presentation, and design. No
one likes watching the same movie over and over again… I don't
think… especially when that first movie wasn't all that great
to begin with. I guess the real root of the problem is
that I insist on watching all of these movies.
Because of this, it was even difficult to enjoy the unintended
humor. Watching people explode from rogue heat waves is
pretty funny. Watching folks run from to the roof to get
away from basement lava, then run back down to the basement to
get away from roof lava is pretty darned funny. One
would think basement lava would just collapse your average
structure, but not Pompeii libraries. Listening to the
gang wax poetic about the Kandahar job was pretty funny and
watching hot rocks fall from the sky and incinerate people
never gets old… but we've seen it all before.
What this movie needed was a Lava Zombie. Nobody is
listening to me about any of this stuff, but all I'm saying is
mix it up a little bit guys. Don't let your movie be
'simply terrible', allow it to be 'spectacularly
terrible!' Lava Zombies… or maybe ninjas… is key to
making that happen.
