Volcano

Rating:
Summary: Three words: stupid, bad, and painful!
Review: I read somewhere that "Volcano" costed more than another little volcano flick called "Dante's Peak". After seeing this movie, I find that very hard to believe. All the money must've gone into either making the lava look realistic or champaigne for the cast and crew, because this is nothing but a sloppy mess of a film. I'm going to break up this review into the three words I mentioned earlier: stupid, bad, and painful.

STUPID: This word sufficiently describes the movie as a general whole. I'm not commenting on the possibility of a volcano erupting in California (I'm not a geologist!). I'm commenting on everything else. The plot is unbelievably weak, and all the subplots are even weaker. Characters didn't act like people; they acted like...well, who knows what they acted like? How do cardboard cutouts act like? I found it very difficult to care about anything that was going on. One of the best examples was where they were causing a building to fall to divert the flow of lava. The character played by Tommy Lee saw his daughter in the building's path, and he rushes to save her. Guess what? They emerge from the scene alive! Ugh! Which brings me to my next point:

BAD: The acting was painfully bad. Tommy Lee, the same man who impressed me in "The Fugitive" and "Men in Black" loses a lot of respect by being in this movie. And the other actors? Just as bad. There is virtually no chemistry between the characters, which only makes things worse, and scenes that are supposed to be emotional fall flat. And this brings us to the final point:

PAINFUL: The dialogue in the movie is just that. It's so forced, so unnatural, that I nearly fell sick. And the times it tries to be so philosophical and tear-jerking...even more painful. The best example is near the end, where everyone is covered in ash and dust and therefore colored gray. A little boy looking for his mother says something like "Look. Everyone looks the same." Now, I know this was supposed to be referring to everyone's symbolic unification, despite gender or history or ethnic background, to stop the lava from destroying everything...but it was so bad I felt like crying, crying at how low filmmaking had fallen.

"Volcano" is not worth anyone's time. It has nothing to draw anyone's interest, because everything just falls flat. Do yourself a favor and steer clear of this slush pile of a film.

Rating:
Summary: Wow.
Review: "But I'm lava...what beats that?" a child says during a game of 'rock, paper, scissors' after having witnessed the nearly instantaneous creation of a volcano in the middle of Los Angeles.

That line must be the greatest single piece of dialogue in movie history. But don't worry -- I didn't give anything away. There are plenty of gems like that throughout the film.

This is the type of movie you go into not expecting much; I was not disappointed! Just sit back, and feel the brain cells melt away!

Rating:
Summary: The best L.A. movie!
Review: This movie is probably incomprehensible to those who are not from L.A. But, the movie itself is actually pretty good. I know it received horrible reviews and the dialogue was really 'cheesy', according to critics. The only reason I semi-liked it was because it was in L.A. All of the places in the film, i have been to, including: La Brea Tar Pits, Los Angeles County Art Museum, MacArthur Park (which smells like urine), Beverly Center and everywhere else.

Rating:
Summary: A very special "catastrophy movie"
Review: I know a lot of people have found this movie forgettable, but I can't imagine why. OK, if what you are looking for is one of those movies where the entire world is about to collapse and everybody is looking up knowing this is the last time they'll ever see the sky, with a lot of religion, patriotism and love stories along the way until one guy coming out of nowhere saves the world and tries to pretend he doesn't mind being a hero, well this isn't the movie you are looking for.
This is probably the best "catastrophy movie" I have ever seen, for being so exciting, action-filled and adorable even though it is avoiding all the things I mentioned earlier. With great performances on Tommy Lee Jones and Ann Heche's part, and with beautiful Alan Silvestri's music, I am sure that this is a movie that will be remembered through the years.

Rating:
Summary: Without a doubt: The worst film of 1997...
Review: Who would buy this movie on DVD? Tommy Lee Jones has his usual tired rebel rauser performance. This is the most cheesiest, predictable, laughable, poorly-written, over-hyped, big-budget, boondoggle ever conceived of. Its a riduclous movie, with a riduclous script and riduclous acting. The good thing you can say about the movie is that it doesn't last that long. I'd have to say this is the worst film of 1997... (yeah.. I know what you're thinking, but Dante's Peak never tried to pretend like it was anything but lame-action, and predictable suspense.)

Rating:
Summary: Lame, lame, lame.
Review: Okay, so a volcano is forming under Los Angeles, and nobody manages to really figure this out until it's just about to explode. Pretty soon, folks are running from flying hot rocks, and magma lakes are having their way with the city of angels. It sounds exciting, but it isn't. For such a calamity, this felt so fake, with cheesy effects, dialogue and story, that I never got into it.

Dante's Peak is better.

Rating:
Summary: A predictable empty mesh of special effects
Review: I heard a lot of good things about this movie before seeing it but from the point that Tommy Lee first sees the lava and does not recognize it despite his being a disaster relief specialist, the ability to suspend disbelief gets stretched. Sure in California, he may not have seen a volcano live but surely someone who makes this his living would have seen films of it on discovery channel if not in school learning his trade. And he is supposed to be one of the best. Then of course, you knew his daughter, no matter where she went, would end up in the line of fire. A materialistic building owner bragging of his accomplishments gives away the fact that his building would have to be destroyed before it was over. This movie followed every stereotype of the diasaster genre, including the emotional self sacrifice of one who originally was an obstacle to the hero. The only good thing was Anne Heche's performance. She was the only believable character and probably the only reason I kept watching, though Tommy did a good job with a bad script.

Rating:
Summary: Towering Turkey
Review: Volcano,released in 1997,was a huge box-office flop,and deservingly so.It was boring,dull,moronic,illogicial,predictable,and the special effects were... cheesy.Not even Tommy Lee Jones could save it.The two stars is only for the cute daugter.

Rating:
Summary: Vapid Volcano Vomits Vilely
Review: Quite simply, there is no particular reason to see this film. If you are a fan of the actors involved, you won't be particularly impressed by what they do with what little they are given. If you are a fan of special effects, the best they come up with is, well, stuff that looks a lot like lava. If you go crazy over disaster movies, you might sleep though this one. If in-depth character studies revealing the ironies of the human condition are your thing, the screenwriters manage to go no further than exploring the predictable morality-play trivialities of any disaster movie since The Towering Inferno. If you can't tell what's going to happen to each character within minutes, you must have dozed off. Volcano doesn't even make a challenging game of "Spot the Cannon Fodder". If you are a fan of films featuring seismic activity your time is better spent with Dante's Peak. And certainly, if you enjoy good plots with plenty of suspense and unexpected twists, there's nothing for you here. Sure, it is unexpected for the residents of LA to wake up with a volcano erupting in Wilshire Boulevard, but that's no surprise to the film-viewing public, given the eponymous title (and I don't mean the movie is called "Wilshire Boulevard"!) And if, by some strange twist of fate, you've got a special thing for pyroclastic flows in all their glory, there's not even a mention of the possibility of that horrible fate in store for LA's denizens.

Now, if Mick Jackson and his band of merry men had worked in an ending in which massive mutant magma men lurch limberly from the lava and hurry horribly to Hollywood, where they totally terrorize Twentieth Century Fox into producing their putrid picture--a vile vision of an LA volcano that vomits forth massive mutant magma men who...

Believe me, it would be more interesting. Heck, this movie would be more interesting even if it just had a character who constantly chatted in alliteration....

Rating:
Summary: The coast is toast!
Review: Any movie that makes the subway the vessel of destruction of Beverly Hills has to be given four stars! (well, actually it would be nice if the red line went to the Beverly Center, I could get to work faster)

This is a fun movie, with pretty good special effects, and decent performances. It's pretty formulaic, so you know who is going to die and who won't (although you will pray the annoying kid gets it). They don't play too fast and loose with either the science or the geography, and it is fun for an Angeleno to see all the stuff in the neighborhood "blowed up real good" A great double feature with "Escape from LA"