VOLCANO
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1997 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule: VOLCANO is a bizarre disaster film
that treats an erupting volcano as an urban crisis.
It is sort of a horizontal version of THE TOWERING
INFERNO. Lava, seen as the main threat from the
volcano, is treated a sort of monster that lurks in
tunnels and crawls out on the street devouring all
in its path. Most of the real dangers of a volcano
like the force of the blast and superheated gasses
get what is at most a superficial and much toned
down treatment. Tommy Lee Jones stars as a
functionary trying to keep a lid on the problem.
The visuals are colorful, but the script is just
terrible. DANTE'S PEAK had its faults and perhaps
was no great shakes, but VOLCANO cannot hold a
candle to it. Rating: 0 (-4 to +4)
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.
Mark R. Leeper
mleeper@lucent.com
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