Pompeii: Vesuvius Erupts, Magma Cum Loudly

In disaster movies, the disaster never comes soon enough. Filmmakers tend to sketch the lives and romantic entanglements of their main characters for an hour or so before fate confronts them with an iceberg (Titanic), “an enormous wall of water” (The Poseidon Adventure), an instant ice age (The Day After Tomorrow) or the end of the freakin’ world (2012). You’re handed reams of character exposition so that, when hundreds or millions are about to die in the utterly random Act of God that f...

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