Super Eruption

Over the years for some reason disaster movies have found a fan base like you wouldn't believe. Most of them are a bit cheesy and make little to no sense, but still manage to attract stars as well as fans. The latest Super Eruption stars Richard Burgi with a title that pretty much speaks for itself, but does it explode with enough force to please the hardcore fans of this genre?

Super Eruption follows two Yellowstone Rangers that are forced to fight to save the day against a super volcano that erupts after thousands of years of being dormant. As with most of these movies the story is a mix of possibility and the absurd in hopes to create an edge of your seat disaster flick, but fails to ever really step out of average. The story throws way too much in too fast that it felt like it was rushing to get to the eruption aspect and then never really delivers anything. The effects are pretty cheap and looked like something off the SyFy channel, but minus the cheesy fun. Bergi is always great and does a fine job here with what he is working with, but the rest of the cast are average at best. As mentioned previously the effects should have been the showcase to make a movie like this work, but they didn't offer too many of the fun moments you expect and when they did it just didn't seem like they really pushed it for that great effect.

Obviously there isn't a great expectation of this film being a major blockbuster and is geared towards a specific audience, but those people look for a certain type of cheese and fun which this film lacks. There are sure to be those that love it and cannot wait to add it to their collection, but if you don't normally check these kinds of films out you will most likely be disappointed.

Before the opening credits, rugged park ranger Richard Burgi (as Charlie Young) parachutes into a hellish countryside to rescue his pretty blonde daughter MyAnna Buring (as Claire) and her muscular young boyfriend Alex Wyndham (as Josh). The attempt appears to fail as lava covers the screen. After the credits, we meet our fourth principal player, Disaster Management Agency (DMA) volcanologist Juliet Aubrey (as Kate Brooks). She is helpless as volcanic activity covers North America and the rest of the world. Earth is about to explode when we flashback, "Two Days Earlier." Yellowstone National Park is peaceful until Mr. Wyndham finds a sexually-inclined couple scorched by a sudden blast of hot water. This is interesting as Rafael Jordan's story then proceeds like a horror movie, with the volcano as its monster. However, a disconnected science-fiction time-travel angle and cheesy special effects make it look too silly.

**** Super Eruption (3/8/11) Matt Godd ~ Richard Burgi, Juliet Aubrey, MyAnna Buring, Alex Wyndham

So many ways this is so bad. Start with the special effects, which were probably not as good as high school movie students could do. Add in dialogue, like: "You can't, it's a suicide mission." followed by "fine, just do it." The acting is routine for a low budget movie, and the plot throws in an interesting twist. The premise is that if Yellowstone erupts, it will be the end of the world as we know it, and Kate, a volcanologist is the only one who can stop the eruption. Main characters who were supposed to be rangers wore arm patches that were not even close mimics for park rangers, and the tiny helicopter shown certainly couldn't have room for all that flew with them. They are flying planes and helicopters low and over the magma, ignoring that lightning is often a feature of volcanic eruptions. And planes do not like to fly through volcanic ash. They throw in a lot of falling ash, and while people are warned to cover their noses and mouths, Charlie, the ranger in charge of the park, doesn't seem to need to do that. But the most remarkable aspect is the durability of the actors, in being able to be very close to flowing magma, walking through burning forests and covered with ash, but not being all that bothered by the toxic fumes. Grab the popcorn, and put your mind in idle. But don't expect much. Three stars may be generous, but I cannot fault the actors for lack of a decent budget.

In fact I found this movie pretty awful. Not the worst I've seen from SyFy, but this is little consolation. The premise seemed decent if not exactly new territory, and I have seen some of the actors before and I wouldn't call them bad actors overall(I am especially looking at MyAnna Buring). But you would never guess seeing here. It is not terrible or hilariously bad as much, but nobody is really believable and come across as bland. It doesn't help that the script is so cheesy, wishy-washy and sometimes confused too, or that you don't care for the characters at all, for they continue to be written in an underdeveloped and stereotypical manner. The music is both forgettable and sluggish-sounding. But where Super Eruption really falls down is in the story and special effects. The story is a good, if as I've said familiar, but it manages to be predictable and preposterous, with the whole business about the main character being able to see and talk to herself from a different dimension through a computer doesn't make sense, was superfluous to the entire story and with a slightly longer length the film could've explained this much more. The romance was clichéd and hokey as well. I have seen worse effects like in Titanic II, but the ones here do still look fake and as though they were made in a rush. All in all, awful instead of super, dull instead of interesting and preposterous instead of plausible or thrilling, in short not SyFy's worst but still a disaster of a film. 1/10 Bethany Cox

I was looking forward to watching a new and exciting disaster movie this evening. This movie was a total waste of my two hours. Although the basic story is good - Yellowstone erupting, which scientists say is inevitable, the storyline is totally ludicrous. The scenes where the main character sees and talks to herself through her computer, from apparently another dimension, makes no sense whatsoever and doesn't add a thing to the story. The special effects as well are just pitiful.

If there's nothing else to watch on TV and you don't care about wasting two hours, then go for it; otherwise, you'll be better off spending that time reading a good book. I wish that's what I had done! In my opinion, this is one of many badly scripted made-for-TV science fiction movies that has come out of Hollywood in the past two decades. Seems they don't know how to make them anymore!