Volcano

Volcano

25/4/1997 1h 44m 5.9/10

Overview

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

Mic Rodgers

Top Billed Cast

Keith David

Keith David

Lt. Ed Fox

Tommy Lee Jones

Tommy Lee Jones

Mike Roark

Don Cheadle

Don Cheadle

Emmit Reese

Anne Heche

Anne Heche

Dr. Amy Barnes

Gaby Hoffmann

Gaby Hoffmann

Kelly Roark

Jacqueline Kim

Jacqueline Kim

Dr. Jaye Calder

Reviews

CinemaSerf

CinemaSerf

5/27/2023

6/10

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.

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