Volcano is an action drama starring Tommy Lee Jones, Anne Heche, and Don Cheadle, and was directed by Mick Jackson. The film opened in the United States on April 25, 1997 just a few months after Dante's Peak, a movie with a similar plot.
Taglines: "The Coast Is Toast", "There are at least 1,500 active volcanoes that we know about...and at least one that we don't. Welcome to Los Angeles", "It's Hotter than Hell!", "L.A. Erupts in 1997", "You'll Have One Hell-Lava Time!"
Tommy Lee Jones stars as Mike Roark, a Los Angeles emergency official who takes charge when a volcano grows out of the La Brea Tar Pits. A river of lava flows down Wilshire Boulevard, through the Metro Red Line subway tunnel, and creates a fountain of lava next to the Beverly Center shopping mall in Beverly Hills. The lava destroys one subway train in the Red Line, kills the Metro chairman by melting him, burns cars, firemen, homes, and fire trucks, and burns down the L.A. county art museum.
In spite of placing himself and his teenage daughter in danger, Mike decides to save the city by diverting the river of lava (with the help of demolition teams) into the concrete channel of Ballona Creek, which allows the lava to flow safely into the Pacific Ocean. But there's a problem. San Vicente Boulevard does not slope down like Mike is thinking. It slopes the opposite direction and the lava will not flow into the creek; it will instead flow the opposite direction; right into the thousands of Patients at Cedars Sinai Hospital. So Mike orders the demolition team to plant charges in both the street and the Beverly Center but as they do; the lava hits a block on the Red Line subway and a massive geyser of lava erupts out of San Vicente Boulevard, threatening the Beverly Center and its occupants. Moments Later, when all the charges are planted, they are fired one by one and a new building just across from the Beverly Center comes crashing down just as Mike Roark saves his daughter Kelly and a little boy named Tommy. Moments later, the lava hits the Pacific Ocean, bringing to an end Mt. Wilshire's reign of terror.
The premise for the movie is loosely based on the appearance of ParÃcutin, a volcano which emerged from a farmer's field in Mexico. The depiction of the behavior of volcanoes and lava in the rest of the movie, however, is for entertainment rather than scientific accuracy.
Giving the film 1.5/4 stars, Roger Ebert writes "This is a surprisingly cheesy disaster epic". While Mike LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle says, "It can't make us care", and Marc Savlov of the Austin Chronicle describes the film as "an embarrassment, albeit one of the so-bad-it's-kinda-good variety" giving it 1.5/5 stars.
On RottenTomatoes.com Volcano has a "freshness" of 35% classifying it as "rotten"
Volcano was released to 2,774 screens on April 25, 1997 and grossed $14.58 million on its opening weekend. Domestically the film grossed $47.47 million and $72.6 million at the foreign box office, bringing its world wide total to about $120.1 million. These totals were significantly lower than the $178 million world wide gross of Volcano's competitor with a similar plot Dante's Peak which opened in February 1997, just two months prior to Volcano. Comparing the two films, Marc Savlov says, "While Dante's Peak at least offered some sort of glimpse into the geological workings of volcanoes and the men and women who study them, Volcano dispenses entirely with the intellect and goes straight for the guts"
Volcano was nominated for, but did not win, the 1997 Razzie Award for Worst Reckless Disregard for Human Life and Public Property.
Volcano was released on VHS on May 26, 1998. The film was subsequently released on DVD on March 9, 1999. |
