Nerds That Geek Movie Review: 'Apocalypse Pompeii'

Written by Scott Edwards

Taking vacations as a family can be one of the greatest adventures you can ever do, but they can also be stressful at the same time. Visiting a distant land from your home, you get to see and experience many things that you may never have before, but it can come at a price. The fear of being separated is just one of the things that parents fear when taking their children on a trip, since they don’t know the area and who to contact if someone goes missing. But that should not keep you from traveling as a family, because the memories that you will be able to make will last everyone for a lifetime.
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Arriving in Italy for a business trip, Jeff Pierce has brought his wife Lynne and daughter Mykaela along for the ride. With his new business venture on the table, Jeff has all of the pressure on his shoulders to seal the deal and has the faith of his ladies to get it done. But when Lynne and Mykaela are ready to get on a tour bus to visit Pompeii, the ground does a little shaking. Convincing Jeff that they will be fine, the women are outfitted with some SAT phones, just in case something happens on their trip and he is out of the area. With everything going off without a hitch, Jeff makes it to his business meeting while the women are on their way to one of the greatest natural disaster areas in the world.

Seeing the buried city of Pompeii for the first time, Mykaela shows off her knowledge of what happened there so many years ago. Impressing the tour guide with her knowledge, Mykaela explains that when her dad was in the Marines, she would study about all of the places that he was stationed. But her respect for world history can only get her so far when the ground starts to shake again and this time Mount Vesuvius decides to open up to try and take back the city of Pompeii once again. With plenty of knowledge about volcanos and eruptions, Mykaela gets dubbed the leader of the tourist group and will do everything within her power to keep them safe from the mountain until help arrives.

In the middle of his meeting, the shaking ground concerns Jeff, but not as much as when he looks out the window to see Mount Vesuvius erupting. Unable to get ahold of his family, Jeff calls upon an old friend, Colonel Carlo Dillard to try and get out to the city of Pompeii for a rescue mission. Being shut down by his old friend and the state department, Jeff sees that his old group has reassembled to help their commanding officer one last time. Being able to procure a helicopter to make it to ground zero, Jeff and his crew have only one target in their crosshairs, to save his family and whomever might still be alive with them, but the erupting volcano may be the least of their worries when the Italian military is breathing down their necks.

Just a fun disaster movie if you are into things like that. I actually really liked how the storyline played out in this one, even though some things just seemed very silly, i.e. lava flowing up stairwells. I liked that the film had a strong female lead that actually made smart decisions and had an idea about what to do to keep her mother and other survivors safe from the volcano. Usually you have everyone losing their minds when this kind of event takes place and she keep it cool throughout. Then there’s the Jeff Pierce story that could have turned into an international incident, but came out alright because he was able to accomplish his goal of saving his family. With a very active volcano, fire raining from the sky, earthquakes, lava and an intelligent lead, it is just a fun movie to get lost in while you are thinking about planning your next family outing to Italy. Happy Viewing.

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