डांटेस पीक

Back in 1997, when I was still a carefree and stressless teenager, there suddenly came two volcano movies in one year. I enjoyed them both at the time, but all the critics and movie-going audiences unanimously claimed this "Dante's Peak" was much better than "Volcano". They were right.

Now that I re-watched them both again, shortly after one another, "Dante's Peak" is definitely the superior achievement, mainly thanks to the better and far more plausible script, but also the special effects are more splendid. What I also didn't realize in 1997, because I was too young and because I am European, is that "Dante's Peak" bears a lot resemblance with the factual events of the Mount St. Helens eruption as they occurred between end of March and mid-May 1980.

Not only does director Roger Donaldson make use of the actual Mount St. Helens craters as filming locations, but there are also many parallels with the series of events as they took place in 1980. Similar to St. Helens, Dante's Peak is the name of a quiet and peaceful little town in Washington state, located at the bottom of a beautiful volcano that has been dormant for nearly 150 years, and believed to remain like that. One geologist/volcanologist also predicts the eruption and forewarns the local authorities, but hardly anybody takes him seriously. And, last but not least, here as well the human death toll unnecessarily increases because stubborn elderly people refuse to leave their mountaintop homes when the volcano erupts. By the way, if you enjoyed "Dante's Peak", I warmly recommend seeking out the obscure 1981 disaster-movie "St. Helens" directed by Ernest Pintoff.

There is a formula for disaster movies and books. An insightful scientist sees The Bad Thing is going to happen, various foils keep him from warning people (often with sillier motivation than in this film), we get to know a bunch of average Joe characters who survive or do not survive the disaster. Earthquake movies, movies about made-up natural disasters that cannot happen, asteroid movies, even some nuclear holocaust films (like The Day After, unique in how many survive). It's a hackneyed formula, but it also works, and nothing else really does work as well for disaster plots. It was followed here.

The special effects were terrific in the day, and they still hold up very very well in 2012.

For a Hollywood film, the science was pretty good. I actually cringed back at the shots of Hawaii type basalt floes (just...no), and the ashfall cleared up nicely whenever they wanted a wide shot, which anyone in Yakima could tell you it really doesn't do, and the boat and drive-over-lava scenes were silly, and if you paddle a boat (through acid or not) with one hand, it's not going to go straight, and our heroes didn't need to cover their mouths in ashfall (meaning, IRL, the ash would turn to concrete in their lungs and they'd suffocate). However, all that having been complained about, much else was very accurate: what gets tested for by volcanologists, what monitoring stations of the day looked like, what some of the warning signs of a coming eruption might be. Most Hollywood film reviews by me on science-based movies are nothing but a list of what they did wrong, with no "however" of accurate bits to follow that list, so kudos for doing it more than half right.

A pleasant diversion, very pretty to look at.

I love the way this film builds up tension by slowly developing the characters and inducing drama between them. All of this makes a film much better than VOLCANO. The list of fine actors/ actresses include Pierce Brosnan, Linda Hamilton, Charles Hallahan, Grant Heslov, Elizabeth Hoffman, Tzi Ma, Christopher Murray and more. This film shows how people might actually act and think in a volcano situation. The art direction was great as they showed the sky and ash beautifully. The scenery of the town is very nice and the whole town seems very quiet and peaceful. I would have wanted to live there.

This is the best volcano movie ever. No volcano movie will ever surpass this one. The cinematography is great also. Roger Donaldson did a great job of direction and the score by James Newton Howard is beautiful. All of these elements create a film that is unforgettable. DANTE'S PEAK gets 5/5.

This "disaster film" had some of the best special effects of its day (almost 10 years ago). I have to say "of its day" because technology has made CGI become dated quickly these days.

This film is all about a volcano, a la Mt. St. Helen's, erupting and killing people and destroying a small town below it. Some of the scenes were just jaw- dropping and, at least for the first-time viewer, a lot of suspense over whether the main characters of the story will survive it.

Of course, there are some credibility gaps in here, things that just could not happen such as little boy drive van up a mountain (when his feet wouldn't reach the foot pedals!) but you just go along for the ride and enjoy the tension and special effects even if the story gets a little hokey.

It might not be the most intelligent film, but it's very entertaining 109 minutes, and that's the name of the business. It's good escapist fare, and that's all. It's worth two looks.

I think in between those years i have watched it numerous times.

CGI has got better but to the point where it seems a little unreal, this doesn't.

Daft plot points (we still get plenty of them) but generally a really watchable disaster movie.