Volcano (1997)
Starring: Tommy Lee Jones, Anne Heche
Directed by Mick Jackson
Why do disaster movies come in pairs? You’d think one volcano movie or one asteroid movie per summer would be enough. (Maybe even that would be one too many.)
But I’m not going to gripe about how many small budget gems could be made for the price of this dinosaur. It’s a big, dumb, fun movie. It almost made me want to go out and rent its sibling, “Dante’s Peak.� Well, almost.
Like the packaging promises, the coast is indeed toast as a volcano erupts in the middle of Los Angeles, threatening to destroy the city everyone loves to hate. Tommy Lee Jones, as the intrepid head of the Office of Emergency Management, saves everyone’s bacon practically single-handedly. The movie is filled with the usual stock characters: venal city officials who ignore the threat till too late, pushy reporters, the pretty scientist, and the faint of heart who discover their inner hero. There’s even a cute pooch, rescued at the last moment, guaranteed to bring a lump to your throat ... if you’re especially susceptible to that kind of schmaltz.
Tommy Lee Jones is at his craggy-faced best in this movie, as he deadpans though tons of silly dialogue. The writers have envisioned the head of OEM as a godlike being, and Tommy Lee spends most of the movie in the streets yelling at cops, firemen, and hospital administrators, telling them what to do. He pulls it off, too, which is kind of surprising given the way he’s dressed. He’s wearing a short sleeve dress shirt and a baseball cap, a wardrobe combo that usually shouts out “pencil pusher,� “nerd,� maybe even “retard,� but hardly “action-adventure hero.� Anne Heche overcomes a bad haircut to play the role of the pretty geologist. She’s the brains of the operation, although given the competition she faces here, that may be faint praise. She does a creditable job of playing small-but-plucky, and there’s even a feminist subtext as Tommy Lee’s character tries to keep her from taking on jobs that are “too dangerous for a woman.�
There’s a strenuously earnest racial-harmony subtext too, this in the wake of the LA riots, with a bullet-headed white cop and a burly black guy whose mutual hatred collapses in the face of shared danger. It all ends with the innocence of babes as a small child babbles “everyone looks the same!� Black and white, everyone’s covered with volcanic ash, you see. Problem is, everyone’s the same depressing shade of gray. The credits roll to tune of Randy Newman’s highly ironic “I Love LA.�
I’ve paid more to see worse.
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