[Roark ordered 200 K-rails (freeway dividers) to redirect the lava. ]
Roark: Where's the rest of 'em?
Truck driver: What "rest of 'em?" This is it!
Lt. Fox: Hey, there only about eighty here!
Truck driver: Eighty-two; everything else is stuck on the 5 and the 10.
Lt. Fox: We're trying to keep the city in one piece, pinhead. Eighty rails ain't gonna do it!
Truck driver: So what are you blaming me for?
Lt. Fox: Convenience, ok?
This is the spring of two different volcano movies, DANTE'S PEAK and VOLCANO and it surprising how differently the two films treat the same sort of disaster. DANTE'S PEAK was a dark and downbeat film taking place in Mt. St. Helens territory and its disaster is filmed in dark colors. Its message is that volcanoes are immensely powerful forces of nature and even with the help of technology about the best we can hope for from a confrontation is to get away alive. But they are impressive. VOLCANO is set in Los Angeles among famous landmarks. It tells us that with a bit of ingenuity and a little time any problems including volcanoes can be solved. Much of VOLCANO is tongue-in-cheek with in-jokes about well- known Los Angeles personalities and digs at the controversial Metro system. In short VOLCANO is just one more colorful action film. It seem to have had little interest in seriously exploring the possibility of a volcano in Los Angeles. It does not seem to have been based at all on any existing accounts of real eruptions.
For Mike Roark (played by Tommy Lee Jones), the director of the Office of Emergency Management, the first day of the disaster starts off badly... with an earthquake. In spite of officially being on vacation, he wants to jump immediately into action. But his first problem is that he has to find a sitter to manage his rambunctious thirteen-year-old daughter Kelly (Gaby Hoffman). When he gets to his job, Mike's way of managing is to be in the field investigating while his assistant (Don Cheadle) manages things in the office. It is not long before the earthquake problem gives way to a mystery of several workers who were mysteriously burned in an underground tunnel by something strange that left no sign of its presence. Whatever it is leaves scorching only on its victims, not on the walls of the tunnel. It is time to call in spunky seismologist Dr. Amy Hoffmann (Anne Heche) between them they discover that the real problem is volcanic flames that creep up through the cracks in the floor of the tunnel, then sneak away before they can be seen or leave a scorch-mark. Amy discovers this secret, but before she tell anyone the flames attack with a genuine volcanic eruption geysering out of the La Brea Tar Pits. This micro-mini-eruption sends flaming rocks into the air which come down like cannonballs for blocks around and ash starts falling like snow. But then the real threat appears, streams of hot liquid lava come out of the volcano. They flood Wilshire Boulevard setting fires and burning cars (but for some reason never exploding the gas tanks). With angry lava in the streets the question becomes, can it be stopped before it reaches actual homes? Also, can a coalition of Los Angeles residents put aside their ethnic differences and work together to save the city from the uncontrolled lava stream?
Director Mike Jackson has done some intelligent films including THREADS, THE RACE FOR THE DOUBLE HELIX, A VERY BRITISH COUP, L.A. STORY, and INDICTMENT. Each of those is a modest film that reaches for the mind rather than getting a gut reaction. Unfortunately, that was not how he made VOLCANO. This was a script that he should have turned down from the start, but perhaps he wanted to see what he could do with a bigger budget. The story and screenplay are by first-timer Jerome Armstrong, though Billy Ray shares the authorship of the script. Tommy Lee Jones is okay, but needs to get a little more variety into the roles he plays. He has one interesting character, but he has played that character too often. More interesting is the seismologist played by Anne Heche. She currently is also playing Johnny Depp's long- suffering wife in DONNIE BRASCO.
Armstrong throws frequent jokes into the script, though most of us will have to have many of the jokes explained. Apparently Dennis Woodruff's car, seen prominently in a pool of lava, is a familiar Los Angeles sight. Also familiar is a billboard with a particular actress. Just whether a certain restaurant chain we see multiple times is an in-joke or a product placement, I am not sure. There are some scenes probably were not very well thought-out. Mike seems to be abusing his power asking for special attention from the fire department for his daughter. This probably did not sit well with the audience. In one scene Amy apparently measures a temperature of the ground and gets a reading of 600 degrees just below her feet. That would have burned away her feet. While the special effects are generally fairly good, the digitized lava flows are not always convincing. Neither are some of the matte paintings.
If you want to see an action adventure see VOLCANO, if you want to have a feel for what it really would be like to be caught too close to an erupting volcano, see DANTE'S PEAK. VOLCANO rates a 0 on the -4 to +4 scale.
By : Mark R. Leeper
Source: rec.art.movies.reviews newsgroup
Rating: 3
When an earthquake opens up a fissure under Los Angeles and a volcano erupts in the La Brea Tar Pits, red-hot strawberry jam oozes through the streets of tinsel town creating havoc =97 and big bucks for the film studio.
Tommy Lee Jones is Mike Roark, head of the Office Of Emergency Management and is charged with fixing this inconvenience. It's an emergency that he hasn't had to manage before, but he has help from a seismologist Amy Barnes (Anne Heche). The two of them against furious flaming nature forms the central story line in the latest disaster film to level major US cities.
As much fun as it is to watch LA melt down, there's...
I can't go on. There's really no use in discussing the plot of this film. It's exactly the same as every other disaster film of the last 20 years. An overwhelming force destroys a bunch of stuff. Our hero and his new love interest try to convince the officials that there is a greater danger but they won't listen so the team goes off on their own. There are kids and dogs in danger who are saved at the last minute. In this one, there's even __two__ dogs.
Some of the effects are spectacular, especially the lava bombs, but what's new? Every disaster film has wonderful visuals. There's such a plot formula that the only enjoyment anyone can get from these movies anymore is by watching while turning off your brain.
Jones and Heche are more than adequate in their roles, but, again, so what? They and the millions of dollars that went into this virtual re-make of dozens of movies could have been better utilized.
Although the burning and devastation are entertaining, this is one of those movies where the story couldn't happen unless there are some remarkably stupid characters and the laws of nature are ignored. Most of the film is taken up by firemen spraying water on the thousands-of-degrees lava. In the real world, this would be like attacking a charging lion with a fly swatter.
Not a horrible film to waste an afternoon away with, but you're not going to experience much new. If you do plan on seeing it, make sure you do at a theater. On video, there will be nothing at all.
