DANTE'S PEAK
A film review by Chuck Dowling
Copyright 1997 Chuck Dowling
Dante's Peak (1997) *1/2 out of ***** - Cast:Pierce Brosnan, Linda Hamilton, Charles Hallahan. Writer:Leslie Bohem. Director:Roger Donaldson.
Much has been said about the "return" of the Irwin Allen-style disaster film. I don't think that the comparison is entirely accurate. Sure there were lots of cheesy "disaster" movies in the 70s, "Airport", "The Towering Inferno", "The Poseidon Adventure" and "Earthquake" are just a few. What made those movies watchable was the fact that every character in the film was played by a HUGE star. That made it tolerable enough. Nowadays, all the money goes to the special effects, so we're stuck with maybe one star, one minor star, and a huge group of bit actors or unknowns. That's not a lot of fun. I'd rather hear a big star spout out a silly line, than a nobody spout out a silly line.
"Dante's Peak" is the first of two volcano movies to be released in 1997. "Volcano", the other one, is set to be released later in the year. Even though it has the dumber title, I think that "Volcano" should easily be superior to this insult to our intelligence. The premise for "Volcano" sounds interesting, an unknown volcano underneath the city of Los Angeles erupts. The premise of "Dante's Peak" is limp. Scientists think a volcano may erupt in a small northwestern town and spend the first hour of the film debating whether or not to evacuate the town. The first hour of the film is hereby proclaimed worthless, because everyone in the theater KNOWS the volcano is going to erupt. That's why we're there.
Brosnan plays volcano expert (keep that in mind, he's an EXPERT) Harry Dalton. In true disaster-movie style, he has suffered some sort of trauma due to a volcano. In the first scene in the movie we see his girlfriend killed when a hot rock hits her in the head. While this may seem tragic on paper and it must be heartwrenching in real life, on film its pure cornball. Hard to keep from laughing at that. And thus the tone is set for the film.
Flash forward some months to now, or whatever. We see a building. On the building is a big sign which reads "United States Geological Institute" (or something very similar). Then these words appear on the screen: "United States Geological Institute" telling us that we indeed are looking at the "United States Geological Institute". This is the mentality we are dealing with here. We are letting people make big budget motion pictures who don't realize that we can READ THE WORDS WRITTEN ON THE BUILDING. Director Roger Donaldson we salute you.
Anyway, inside the "United States Geological Institute" we learn that there is volcano activity in Dante's Peak and so Dalton's boss sends his best man, volcano expert Harry Dalton, to investigate. Keep in mind that Harry Dalton is both a volcano expert and the best man they've got at the "United States Geological Institute".
Meanwhile in Dante's Peak, two punk teenagers decide to go skinny dipping in a hot spring. As they start to make out, the creepy music plays, the volcano gets "angry" and really heats up the hot spring, killing the naughty teens. We're watching a slasher movie here folks.
Volcano expert Harry Dalton arrives in town and is escorted around by the town's mayor and coffee shop owner (Hamilton). The mayor is divorced with two kids, and gee whiz, I wonder if hunky Brosnan and sultry Hamilton will end up together at the end? You know, I wish there were more movies where the two leads, a male and a female, went through hell on earth and then go their separate ways.
Anyway, volcano expert Harry Dalton makes his expert conclusion that the volcano is going to erupt and the town should evacuate. But before they can begin, his boss and a team of volcano experts show up. They listen to his expert opinion, and immediately brush it off. His boss basically reacts like "I know you're an expert and my best man and all, but next time, why don't you just stick to what you know?"
The volcano teams goes up to the volcano to send some sort of robot down the volcano to take scientfic readings. Again, slasher-movie mentality takes over. The robot malfunctions, creepy music starts to play, and one scientist goes down, alone and against all logical advice, to repair it. The scene plays as if this action angers the volcano, and the volcano makes rocks fall onto the scientist. I know that's not how it's intended to seem, but it does.
Well AS WE ALL KNOW, the volcano does erupt, and the movie gets SO stupid at this point that it makes the first hour look like "Citizen Kane". For various inane reasons which I don't even feel like talking about, Brosnan, Hamilton, and the kids all travel TOWARDS the volcano instead of away from it, and then spend the rest of the film trying to get back out. Thank god volcano expert Harry Dalton is along to help out. For example, when journeying across a lake to escape a rapid flowing river of lava, Dalton notices that the lake has turned to acid. He is able to scientifically deduce this because the bottom of the boat is being eaten away by acid. His expert advice to the group is "don't touch the water". Thank god he's with them.
"Dante's Peak" is an hour of nothing, twenty minutes of special effects (all of which are in the trailers), and then has just about the most ANTI-climatic ending to any disaster movie ever. I could have written the script in less time than it takes to actually run the film. I've got my money riding on "Volcano".
-- Chuck Dowling Visit Chuck's Movie Reviews at http://users.southeast.net/~chuckd21/ Over 1,600 movies rated and/or reviewed! Movie news, box office reports, film related links, and reader's polls and reviews.
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