Volcano (1997)
1h 44m | PG-13
An earthquake shatters a peaceful Los Angeles morning and opens a fissure deep into the earth, causing lava to start bubbling up. As a volcano begins forming in the La Brea Tar Pits, the director of the city's emergency management service, working with a geologist, must then use every resource in the city to try and stop the volcano from consuming LA.
Director: Mick Jackson
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Genre: Science Fiction, Action, Drama, Thriller
Video: 720p
Cast
Tommy Lee Jones
as Mike Roark
Anne Heche
as Dr. Amy Barnes
Gaby Hoffmann
as Kelly Roark
Don Cheadle
as Emmit Reese
Jacqueline Kim
as Dr. Jaye Calder
Keith David
as Lt. Ed Fox
Reviews
When Los Angeles starts blowing off a little more steam than usual, it falls to disaster emergency supremo "Rourke" (Tommy Lee Jones) to find out what is going on - and when that turns out to be an impending volcanic eruption, he enlists the help of "Dr. Barnes" (Anne Heche) to stop it destroying the city. To be fair, there are plenty of great pyrotechnics and the film pretty much starts in fourth gear - but the ending really lets it down. Not the science, that's quite entertaining as they have to use subway tunnels, storm drains and quite a bit of dynamite; it's the "have to rescue my daughter" nonsense that spoiled it for me. Maybe there ought to be a rule that anyone charged with such responsibility is not permitted to have a teenage child anywhere within a 200 mile radius of their zone of responsibility? Yes, there are plausibility issues too - has the construction industry really been hoodwinking us all for so long? Is demolition really this easy? It's still quite an enjoyable disaster movie, though, that shows well the dedication and commitment of the emergency services when it comes to scenarios like this, but most of the drama is noisily contrived and the performances are merely adequate.