Volcano: Fire on the Mountain

I saw the TV-movie I mentioned when I was in Dallas (PRIOR to release of "Dante's Peak"). The plots of the two are rather similar: (1) both cases, a long-inactive volcano in a nice spot suddenly starts showing signs of activity (2) both cases, there is love-interest connexion with the volcano and vulcanologist (3) both cases, bickering vulcanologist and woman have to do the actual work to handle the eruption (4) obviously, both cases must have unrealistic solution ("Fire on the Mountain", the solution was to set off ACTUAL avalanche to counteract what vulcanologist described as "liquid avalanche"; I didn't see "Dante's Peak" to comment on the solution, other than it being unrealistic--as it oft is in movies).

Well for a TV movie then the 1997 movie "Volcano: Fire on the Mountain" wasn't actually as bad as to be feared. Sure, this was by no means among the top of the line of natural disaster movies. But the movie actually fared well enough, taking into consideration what the movie turned out to be.

The storyline was pretty generic and straight forward as natural disaster movies go. So yeah, you know the outcome of the movie from the very moment the movie starts. Yeah, it was that predicable. And that was actually a bit amazing given the fact that they had no less than 5 writers working on the script; Merrill H. Karpf, Donna Ebbs, Scott Weinstein, Craig Spector and Steve Womack. So I am a little bit perplexed that five writers didn't manage to come up with something more original and outstanding.

However, director Graeme Campbell actually managed to bring the movie to life on the screen in a well enough manner. I mean, at least I was adequately entertained from start to end of the movie. Sure, this wasn't the finest moment in natural disaster movies, but the movie provided sufficient entertainment, so mission accomplished.

The acting in the movie was fairly good, though the characters written in the movie did suffer from being rather generic and lacking a proper backstory and drive. So you don't really invest any particular feeling into the characters as they are essentially faceless and one and the same.

For a natural disaster movie, then "Volcano: Fire on the Mountain" fared well enough in the special effects department. I mean, it wasn't top of the line, not even back in 1997, but the special effects were functional and served their purposes well enough.

My rating of "Volcano: Fire on the Mountain" , once the volcanic ash and snow from the avalanche settles, becomes a mediocre five out of ten stars. I think the movie is actually adequately entertaining enough for a single viewing if you have an interest in the natural disaster movies.

OK, Volcano: Fire On The Mountain is not a blockbuster movie. It doesn't pretend to be - it's a TV movie! It doesn't have any actors I've ever heard of which, in itself, seems to pre-determine some viewers' opinion of it. But why does an hour-and-a-half's free entertainment need to be studded with mega-stars for it to be appreciated? My contention is that it doesn't! In some ways, this movie is fairly "ordinary" in that it portrays a very believable event in a very believable way. Sure, it needs to have some super-heroic deeds incorporated into it (which it does) otherwise it would just be a news broadcast! Nevertheless, those dramatic events are, in this movie, dramatically realistic.

I don't intend to detail exactly what those dramatic events are (because I would then have to click the spoilers box and I think it would be better for you to judge for yourselves). Suffice to say that real things happen to real people in real situations and those things are told in an exciting way.

No, Volcano isn't ever going to get mentioned at the Emmys - but then how much of what we watch on our TVs ever is? It isn't boring and, to be honest, I enjoyed it and I think you will too. Just remember - you get what you pay for and, since this costs nothing, it is worth a lot more than that!

Film delivered exactly what it set out to do

Obviously not a cinema standard film or a blockbuster, but an easy watch.

This sentence is fill to reach 150 characters. I'll be there soon.

This is just a forgettable movie that I watched. The story is similar to other disaster movies with one guy suspect something bad will happen while people decides to ignore him until it happen. It's predictable to guess what happened in the movie and doesn't do anything too interesting about. There's also a couple of plotlines that aren't that interesting to learn about and are generic. The acting is pretty bland throughout and isn't that impressive at all. Even when it gets to the disaster scenes its doesn't have that tension to be found in it because it happen pretty quickly and there's not that much disaster to be found in it.

Volcano: Fire on the Mountain is best be forgotten on how bland it is.