Ring of Fire

I enjoy a good disaster movie. There's something fun about it, and I'm not sure why.

I read the premise to "Ring of Fire" and thought it would be good, silly fun, kind of like the recent "Eve of Destruction", where bad physics ran amok. Then, I watched it.

I expected bad geology to be a part of it, but I didn't expect the whole movie to be based on it. The science issues began right away, with an Evil Corporation drilling for oil...in a volcanic caldera? The science only got worse from there--including one of the main plot points: that causing a volcanic eruption on one volcano can trigger hundreds of others around the Pacific Ring of Fire to erupt--by the way, Yellowstone is NOT part of the Pacific Ring of Fire.

Along with the bad science, there were the typical, modern movie stereotypes: evil corporation headed by a charming, charismatic white man with larceny in his heart, and the environmentalist with a heart of gold, who is heroically willing to sacrifice everything in order to do the right thing, and who is always right about everything scientific and environmental. And, let's not forget the cast of 2-dimensional bit players, most of whom seem to be there just to die stupidly.

I did think the acting was a cut above many low-budget TV movies. I also have to be impressed that these guys can keep a straight face and not wink at the camera while delivering their lines.

Did I enjoy it? Oddly, yes, sometimes. I didn't think it was a good movie; the entertainment value lies in how bad it is. Between the eye-rolling and occasional sigh--brought on by yet another science error--I got some good laughs. I wasn't offended by the shaky cam, the way some people were, but I will agree it was overused. Conclusion? If you believe science should be accurately portrayed in movies, don't watch this one. If, instead, you can laugh well at the ignorance of filmmakers and think drivel like Sharknado is fun because it's awesomely silly, then you might just enjoy this movie.

I think this could have been a pretty OK program. Whoever made the decision to have so much of the camera work be on the shakiest hand held camera should be banned from the industry for life. I could have done better filming it with an old hand held movie camera without any image stabilization. It felt like they were doing it on purpose to add to the suspense. But instead all they did was make it nearly impossible for most people to watch without throwing up from motion sickness. I was interested in the story so I soldiered on, but I had to watch it with many long breaks over a number of days because of how bad the camera work was. One strange thing was that the only shots that weren't shaky were the CGI shots. Those were perfect. I guess they were too cheap to try to keep the Dramamine effect going during those (thank goodness). I probably would have given up on this after the first 20 minutes if Terry O' Quinn hadn't been in this. I won't say how it ended; only that I was glad when it was over so I could put away the Dramamine. If I had it to over again, I would have skipped this one just because of the really terrible camera work. These producers and camera people should be ashamed.

Ok, environmentalists know best, oil companies are bad. Typical schlock and improbable courses of action and decision making. Way left wing. Totally 'save the planet'. Very one-sided, but, did I mention entertaining? Terry O'Quinn is always a solid performer.

If there was a redeeming quality, it was Terry O'Quinn. He was great on LOST, and while his character is nowhere near as interesting he does do his best here and is quite commanding. The same cannot be said for the other actors who are all unbearably wooden and emotionless. When they don't act like they genuinely care or are living their characters' situations, at best they were indifferent, it is very difficult to be properly drawn in. Good characters and writing would have helped, but Ring of Fire manages to not even have those either. The characters are badly underwritten ciphers(for a three hour miniseries there was no excuse for this), the sort of stereotypes that we see all the time in movies featuring on the SyFy channel, and they are never more than that. The dialogue is clunky, overly-talky and dissolves too much into tedious melodrama and overlong exposition, it is often very over-familiar stuff that is made even more painful by awkward line delivery. There is very little to be invested in the story either. It was increasingly predictable(especially in the second half) and takes far too long to get going, two thirds of the first half is set-up exposition, and the excessive padding isn't enough to let go of the feeling that there wasn't enough story to sustain a three-hour running time. That there are too many sub-plots and none are particularly engaging is part of the problem as well. If it was done in half the time, with less dialogue, fewer subplots, more action and more attention to character, Ring of Fire would have been much more successful. Ring of Fire even looks as though it was made in a rush, with a unappealingly drab and grainy colour palette. There's been worse use of shaky cam, but it was distractingly over-used and the constant jerky movements are enough to make anybody seasick. There's also been worse CGI but that's not saying much, it's still dully rendered. Overall, a disaster in itself really. Terry O'Quinn is the least bad thing about it but even at the halfway mark I found myself begging for a fire extinguisher, the fact that I make it my business not to judge a movie/series without seeing the whole thing was the sole motivation for sticking with it. 2/10 Bethany Cox

Normally I turn off the TV or fall asleep, when I watch movies like this one. But not this time, thanks to brilliant acting by the actors!

I did not see it as a two part Series, but as a movie - so it was a bit to long. But a good plot and great acting made me watch it till the end! I can't understand the critics about the cameras, but maybe it's because I'm from Denmark... It was definitely not a problem during the film.

Personally I liked the way, the persons was connected in the movie. It gave a good flow in the story.

A lot of great pictures from the beautiful nature was definitely a plus :-)