LA Apocalypse Movie Review – LA Has Nothing to Worry About

Runtime: 80 minutes

Release Date: December 20, 2014

Rating: NR

Director: Michael J. Sarna

Calvin is just your typically 20 something living in Los Angeles and planning to propose to his girlfriend when all hell breaks loose. He had everything all set up to pop the question to Ashley (Gina Holden, Final Destination 3) later that night, but an earthquake stops him in his tracks. At the same time, Ashley is stuck in her office when disaster strikes. She and her coworkers wind up trapped in the basement with nearly dead cell phones.

To make matters worse, the earthquake did enough damage to the local jail/prison that a group of inmates escaped. Some side with the king pen drug dealer, while others just want to get the hell out of town. There's also a group of soldiers called in by the government to help the survivors. I think that was just an excuse to put Christopher Judge in the movie as a lieutenant.

After spending way too much time running around and moaning because he can't get in touch with Ashley, Calvin finally meets Grisham, Judge's character. The two help each other until they wind up separated, which leads to Grishman spending most of the movie trying to save both Ashley and Calvin because he claims he owes them or something.

LA Apocalypse should be right up my alley. As much as I love me some horror flicks, I also love me some disaster movies. This one was just bad. After it ended, my friend looked at me and said something to the effect of how it wasn't as bad as some of the stuff I made him watch, while I stuck to my original opinion that it was just bad.

This is the kind of movie that milks way too much out of specific scenes. Take for instance Ashley and her coworkers. They're trapped in the building, reach for their cell phones, and conveniently find that everyone has an almost dead battery. That's something that should only take 60 seconds at most but turns into a five minute long scene. We then come back to find that instead of turning off their phones to save their batteries, they decided that everyone should try to make one phone call each. Uh, if your phone doesn't work, why would the next phone?

This is really just so Ashley can make one phone call and leave Calvin a message. He, of course, then spends 10 minutes running around town to try and listen to the message before deciding that he must save her at any cost. It might work if the two had any chemistry or the film set up their relationship first, but nope. All we know is that he wanted to propose. We know nothing else about them or even see them interacting until the last minute or so of the movie.

Oh, and did I mention that Calvin later gets saved by a hot woman who conveniently knows a little too much about the city's penal system and all the convicts currently on the loose? Ugh. That's the best word to describe LA Apocalypse: ugh.