The Pompeii Asylum
Jeff Pierce (Adrian Paul - Deadly Descent: The Abominable Snowman), a former black ops commando, is in Italy with his wife, Lynne (Jhey Castles - Bringing Up Bobby), and daughter, Mykaela (Georgina Beedle), as there is a chance they will be moving there as he has a job interview. Whilst Jeff is at his interview Lynne and Mykaela head off to do the tourist thing and visit the ruins at Pompeii. But when Mt. Vesuvius unexpectedly erupts Mykaela, with her knowledge of volcanoes, tries to lead her mum and a few other tourists to safety whilst Jeff calls in a favour from old friend, Col. Carlo Dillard (John Rhys-Davies - 100 Degrees Below Zero), to help assemble his old team in order to rescue his family.
There they were, two words, just 9 letters which either makes you dread the worst or prepare to be entertained by the bad. Yes "Apocalypse Pompeii" is distributed by The Asylum and those in the know will tell you to usually expect the worst when you come across a movie in any way linked to The Asylum. Now truth be told I actually enjoy it when I find myself watching movies which The Asylum are associated with as not only are they uncomplicated but they often amuse me in one way or another, yes I am a BMA a bad movie addict.
Unfortunately when it comes to "Apocalypse Pompeii" there is two sides to this movie and sadly neither entertain by being enjoyably bad, or frankly being good in anyway. On one hand you have Mykaela trying to lead the tourists to safety having read up all about the different stages of a volcanic eruption and how others have managed to survive during other eruptions. In truth this side almost feels like it could have made for an okay disaster movie but that may be because the other side of "Apocalypse Pompeii" is simply bad. That other side is of course Jeff trying to rescue his family and it is full of the sort of fake action and bad effects which just make you groan. At the same time this side also features John Rhys-Davies who reprises his role as Dillard, which he played in an earlier disaster movie, and seems to be turning into Brian Blessed with his authoritative voice which sounds completely out of place in this.
What this all boils down to is that "Apocalypse Pompeii" lives down to the expectations when it comes to a disaster movie which The Asylum is associated with. The sad thing is that unlike other similar disaster movies this one fails to end up enjoyably bad.
