Volcano

Rating:
Summary: The Feel-good L.A. movie of the summer---*any* Summer!
Review: Los Angelenos have always had a rough and dangerous go of it. Their storied city is full of dangers and nuisances: pollution, high crime, riots, traffic jams, and earthquakes. And as if that's not bad enough, with 1997's "Volcano" they have another worry to add to the list: that's right, a volcano.

That's right: the premise of "Volcano" is pretty straightforward, and if you can accept that the movie is about the brave and valiant struggle fought by the hardy souls of the Office of Emergency Management to contain the merciless advance of molten magma before it destroys L.A.---well, if you can accept that, then you should have a fun two hours of blissfully brain-free, high-cheese, competently directed special effects fun.

Watch jets of red-hot lava bursting up through Beverly Hills and the La Brea tar pit! Watch fire engines and police cars consumed by the molten lava! Watch hordes of police choppers converge on the flaming river that is now Wilshire Boulevard! Watch veteran character actor John Carroll Lynch (who played Norm Gunderson in "Fargo") suffer an anguishing, horrible death that shouldn't happen to a dog!

The movie is crisply, competently directed by Mike Jackson, and the action is on an epic scale and lavishly shot, and "Volcano", silly premise and all, manages to achieve some striking visual moments, owing largely to the talent of cinematographer Theo Van de Sande, who went on to give "Blade" its dark, lush, techno look. Particularly epic is the shot of molten magma flowing down Wilshire Boulevard, incinerating the palm trees as it goes, as well as the climactic sequence in which helicopters swoop in to drop flame-retardant chemicals on the roiling lava.

As for the acting, it's hard to figure out who turns in the better performance: Tommy Lee Jones pretending to take the proceedings seriously, or Anne Heche pretending to be attracted to Tommy Lee Jones.

Best of all, "Volcano" really is the feel-good movie of the year: it ends with an important social message. A small boy, narrowly saved from the lava, is asked by a firefighter to identify his mother in the crowd. The boy looks about, perplexed: everyone around him is coated in thick grey ash from the volcano, and he can't pick his mother out from the crowd. "All the people---they look alike," the child warbles, smiling, and so they do! Indeed, all the disparate races and classes of divided Los Angeles society have been brought together---by a volcano! Proving---actually, I don't know what it proves, but "Volcano" is a fun movie, silly ending and all.

Rating:
Summary: Better than that other volcano movie with James Bond ;)
Review: I've watched this movie dozens of times, the first being at an ampitheater in Indiana on a cold fall day. I hadn't heard of it before but the tickets were free, so I checked it out. Wow! What a movie! I couldn't believe it, the entire time I was sitting on the edge of my seat, I left with no fingernails at all. All the actors were just terriffic, especially Tommy Lee Jones, who just adds flair to any film he's in. I'm not sure where people get off saying that this movie is too fantastical, either. As they say in the film, one day in Mexico a man saw a smoking fissure in his field; the next day there was a volcano growing there. That story is completely true, and it's happened repeatedly throughout the world. Why couldn't it happen in LA, the most geologically unstable major city? That's like saying that an earthquake can never hit New York City because it just can't happen. And as the current quote on the page said, you can't fight nature? The techniques used in Volcano are used constantly in Iceland and Greenland, which are all highly geologically unstable places with many volcanos. Anywho :) off my soapbox, if you've got a second, check this out on a large TV with a huge sound system! And skip that Dante's whatever, Volcano is the bomb... literally.

Rating:
Summary: A stale and lame piece of junk
Review: Is it fun to watch? Yes. Why? Because this is so bad you can't help but enjoy. They completely and utterly disregard any realism and totally defy the laws of physics. Let's put it this way, in this movie the coast is toast and the plot is rot. Tommy Lee Jones gets a major pay check to lead the rescue effort when geological mumbo-jumbo causes the La Brea tar pits and the new L.A. subway system to spit steam, ash, fire and a rolling, molten sea. Actually the coast is not even toast. Let me quote from everyone's favorite smart alleck Mike Nelson: "I hate to start this by nitpicking, but the movie really should be called lava and not volcano. The "film" starring Tommy Lee Jones and Anne Heche, really was long on lava and, as far as I could tell, had only one small-quite small, really-volcano. And, despite all the hype, the coast was not, at any time during the film, toast. The coastal city of Los Angeles, CA, was indeed in no small danger of being incinerated by flowing magma, but the situation was completely handled by disaster workers, and only the most pessimistic naysayer would describe the situation by saying 'the coast is toast.'" Beyond all that, seeing as how close our characters were to the lava, one would have to wonder why they weren't burnt up. At the temperature of the magma the characters could've in no way been as close as they were. Oh well it's simply a terrible movie. Bad acting, boring plot, crumby music, and doesn't even remotely live up to the hype! Unless you're in the mood for a cheeze-fest I suggest you see something else. Heck watching grass grow would be more stimulating than this.

Rating:
Summary: Haha, what were you people expecting? Pyroclastic flows?
Review: I think, overall, this is a good disaster movie. I mean, are you ever REALLY looking for a realistic scenerio in an action flick? I think the plot progressed smoothly (not one of those movies where the screen comes on and starts with people running around getting fried), and the music was great.

Obviously this is a small volcano, considering that if it was a Mount St. Helens thing with pyroclastic flows and lava all over, then yeah, LA wouldn't stand much of a chance, but its fun to think how a major city like LA would face a little volcano deciding to pop up in the middle of the city.

Rating:
Summary: I think I lost some IQ...
Review: This has to be one of the dumbest movies...ever...Yes ever...Seeing this movie I think my IQ dropped 20 points from it's stupid storyline and totally impossible happenings as a volcano magically forming in LA

Really dumb....the only thing good about this movie is laughing at it the entire way for its sheer stupidity

Rating:
Summary: valcano rocks on!
Review: I love the movie valcano. I recemend it only to people who like horror and death movies becuse valcano is one of them. I hope kids don't really belive that this has happend becuse there has not ever been a valcano so powerful to blow up so much ash and magma to destruct a whole state and more than that so dont belive this happend. I will like this movie so much I am willing to pay for 2 copys of it if I had that kind of money but I dont so dont think I will.

Rating:
Summary: LAVA MY LIFE
Review: Okay, people: when you went to the theater or rented or bought the VHS or DVD, JUST WHAT WERE YOU EXPECTING? This is a pure out and out two bag popcorn, one gigantic Coca cola thrill ride of a movie. It starts out with a bang and doesn't let up. You want great stories, try THE HOURS; you want overwhelmingly good acting, try MYSTIC RIVER. You want a fun, oh my god,look out thriller, this is one of the best. Nuff said.

Rating:
Summary: Cheer for the Volcano!
Review: This is a hilariously BAD "Can't we just all get along?" Golden
Turkey movie. Once you get past the preposterous notion of a
lava-flowing volcano coming up out of Mid-Wilshire's Museum District,this movie is so bad, it's funny, especially if you are
familiar with the LA area, then you can cheer and throw popcorn,
as your favorite or hated sites are wasted. Slogan was great,
"The Coast is Toast," and worth getting together a bunch of
friends and having a Golden Turkey festival party of your own.

I cheered the volcano on, it was the best actor! Best scene was
when the suits all looked around to see who's cell phone had
gone off.

Best enjoyed with friends and some cold brewskis at a party.

Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable Movie But LA Were Just Lucky!!
Review: LA faces a number of disasters including recent wildfire scorching part of surburban area. This movie is a really enjoyable panic movie reminding some of the classic disaster movies such as Earthquake or some of the flood movies I saw during 70s. Lava is described as real as the one could be with the state of the art graphics.

As one of the geology bugs who learned some cases from historical volcanic activities, I think this movie could be misleading for those who want to learn volcanology seriously.

1.All eruptions are not accompaning lavas. Lava flows smoothly like this movie on condition that rock viscosity is low. Not all volcanos follow this pattern. When the viscosity is high the eruption becomes explosive blowing off whole LA areas.

2.Unless their is active volcano nearby there would be little chance that eruption does occur. In Japan, we have the case of new volcano Showashinzan in Hokkaido which became 400 ft high volcanic dome out of just plain field in 1943. But it is actually part of active volcano Mt. Usu that made similar sort of eruption making a new dome previously.

3.Don't Fight Just Evacuate
This is the golden rule when you face eruption. Actual eruption is not made for movie scenes.

As a good entertainment movie I like it.

Rating:
Summary: Almost better-than-average disaster flick
Review: OK, now, it has some elements that were more likable than "Dante's Peak." Unfortunately, its marred by some other factors.

For one, it still seems to follow disaster flick cliches. Tommy Lee Jones has a family issue (wow, didn't see that coming), and if you think some one is about to die or at least get hurt, they probably are.

There are a lot of general dumb scenes too. There's a scene where a firetruck is overturned as oncoming lava approaches it, endangering the two firemen inside. At the same time, Tommy Lee Jones, who is with the fire department, parks his car with his daughter inside and leaves to help the two firemen. Now, lava approaches his car, and his daughter gets out...then stands there. She screams for help.

Now, Tommy Lee Jones has two options:
A) Yell at his daughter to run away while saving the two firemen from a painful, slow, firy death. Or...
B) Go direct his brain dead daughter away from the lava, leaving the two firemen to a painful, slow, firy death.

He goes with B. Go figure.

Some one please explain to me how at the end of the movie when the building falls on Tommy Lee Jones and his two kids why they survive and the two police men trapped inside also don't? And why does the entire crowd clap? Aren't they going to mourn the two policemen who had been trapped inside?

I'm sure scenes like the LA police and the ghetto residents working together were supposed to be inspirational, but predictability destroys what has been left of this movie.