VOLCANO
A film review by Ted Prigge
Copyright 1997 Ted Prigge
Director: Mick Jackson Writers: Jerome Armstrong and Billy Ray Starring: Tommy Lee Jones, Anne Heche, Don Cheadle, Gaby Hoffman, Keith David
There's a scene somewhere in this film where one of the characters reads the book "Screenwriting Made Easy." This is funny the first time just 'cause it is, but funnier as the film goes on since it's totally ironic since the screenwriters of this inane film probably read it, outlined it and then wrote this film. It's like they took the sub-genre of the disaster pic, which can be fun and hokey at the same time, and then forgot one of the greatest parts of them: the stupid, eccentric characters. Yes, "The Poseidon Adventure" is crap, but it's fun 'cause of all the stupid, eccentric characters. And "Earthquake," MY GOD! "Earthquake" has got to be one of the worst movies of all time, but at least they had the joke of having Charlton Heston sleeping with Genevieve Bujold.
"Volcano" takes a semi-intriguing yet stupendously inane plot (a volcano NO ONE knew about suddenly errupts one fine morning and then erupts again later then stops...only it's in, dare I say it? L.A!!!) and then puts no stupid, stereotypical, eccentric characters in it. They're just stupid. And the actors are all good ones. Tommy Lee Jones is great, an Oscar winner, and a member of the Men In Black (my vote for what should be the coolest movie of the summer). Anne Heche is a good indy actress. Don Cheadle STOLE the disappointing "Devil in a Blue Dress" from Denzel's feet. And Gaby's one of the few good teenage actors. But they get nothing to do but act dumb and scream at what's going on. They do their best, God bless them, but they're all lost in the fake magma (only Don Cheadle gets an interesting part and he's the greatest part of the film).
There's no real suspense here 'cause you don't care about anyone. I actually was rooting for Gaby's character to get killed so Tommy Lee Jones wouldn't have to keep saving her (he did it like thirty times!). And there are no interesting sites in L.A. that we see get destroyed. Part of the fun of disaster films is watching sites get toppled or destroyed or whatever. In "Independence Day," the best part (other than Judd Hirsch) was watching the White House and Empire State Building get blown up by the aliens. That was cool. Watching really fake-looking magma plow down the street is not.
Okay, so the film's not devoid of merit. As I already stated, Don Cheadle was great and the cast does their best. And there's this really moronic scene which looks cool. John Carrol Lynch (Norm from "Fargo") goes on a subway car to save people but the lava comes and surrounds it. He has one guy who's wounded and COULD make it. He could throw the guy and jump and still survive. But NO!!! He has to go and inanely jump and land right in the middle of the lava. Here's the cool sight: he melts. Here's the dumb part of it: he somehow manages to throw the man to safety as his legs are melting. Cool sight. No logic. But cool sight.
The volcano erupts twice and for some reason, the film ends there. They aren't worried about it eruting again, they just go home to their toppled homes. But to tell the truth, I was glad they didn't go on. I was hoping the film was over after the first eruption ended. My god, it was actually painful to sit through this little 102 minute long film. I haven't seen "Dante's Peak" but I've heard it's a masterpiece compared to this.
If you want to see a cool disaster flick that's inane but interesting, rent "The Towering Inferno" with Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, and the schweppervescent O.J. Simpson (he saves a cat). If you want to waste your time watching a boring, stupid disaster flick (literally, it almost grossed half of its budget), see this. But I warned you.
MY RATING (out of 5): *
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews