Volcano

I loved the 90's resurgence of the Disaster movie that was cemented as a Genre back in the 1970's but like a Volcano that genre laid dormant for a long time until the 90's exploded with huge, big budget Disaster films with the likes of VOLCANO, DANTE'S PEAK, TWISTER, INDEPENDENCE DAY, DEEP IMPACT, ARMAGEDDON, DAYLIGHT & even JURASSIC PARK could be considered a Disaster movie!!! There's probably more that i haven't mentioned but those were the "Big Ones" & i consider Dante's Peak & Volcano the very best of the bunch. I've always been a big Tommy Lee Jones fan after The Fugitive & Men In Black & U.S Marshalls, Batman Forever, Under Seige, among others as the 90's were his glory days as a star & here he gets his own big budget summertime Blockbuster with his name written big above the title on the poster, this is his film & he's the main star lead of the whole damn thing & he's excellent as our rugged hero lead as he runs about Los Angeles trying to rescue everyone & save the city from a big erupted Volcano spilling out a river of scorching hot lava, Tommy is great & i love his voice & his smart authoritative manner & he puts it all to good use here. There's a nice ensemble cast to round out the supporting characters with Anne Heche, Gaby Hoffman, Don Cheadle & Keith David. I totally love the Thrilling & exciting music score by the legendary ALAN SILVESTRI (Predator 1&2, Judgment Night, Death Becomes Her, Back to the Future & so many more) & the look of the sticky hot summertime LA is captured beautifully on screen & i loved the opening of the movie just showing LA in the morning with everyone going about their day as usual & busyness of it all with not knowing what's growing under the famous city, it's just an exciting & lovely 90's opening especially with the music. The special effects still hold up beautifully & the production design is perfect for a Disaster movie & the most important thing for this big budget popcorn movie is it's simply FUN & full of entertainment. As the City of Angeles starts to crumble & the lava flows through the streets we follow Tommy Lee Jones on his mission to save it all if he can & it's a thrilling & fun experience, i love 90's movies. My favourite Tommy Lee Jones "Vehicle" movie

In the mid-90s, the disaster movie experienced a revival thanks to the advancement of CGI technology, which made creating scenes of destruction on a massive scale far easier and more convincing than ever before; 1997 was the year of the volcano, seeing both the release of Universal's Dante's Peak, and this rather unimaginatively titled effort from 20th Century Fox, which starred Tommy Lee Jones as Office of Emergency Management director Mike Roark, who must try and prevent downtown LA from being entirely engulfed by lava that erupts from the La Brea tar pits.

A slick, major studio, big-budget summer blockbuster, Volcano naturally benefits from a solid cast and state of the art special effects, but proves less thrilling than the premise suggests thanks to a lack of genuinely exciting or particularly innovative set-pieces: too much of the action centres around Jones's attempts to stem the flow of lava, which travels at walking pace thereby presenting little danger to anyone but the elderly and the infirm; meanwhile, director Mick Jackson ticks off the expected clichés from his disaster movie checklist—personal dramas, heroic sacrifices, a sexy scientist, even a cute dog in peril—before wrapping matters up rather too neatly with a finale that delivers far too low a death toll to be truly satisfying.

I'm not going to pretend that this movie is realistic. It isn't. But if you want to just sit down and watch a film with action, drama and entertaining characters, then this is the film for you.

Most disaster films are unrealistic, have no science behind them and if you think about them too much just get worse and worse. This movie is no exception. However, it is still a brilliant film if you want to sit down and not think too hard, or if you want to put a movie on without having to give it your full concentration. Personally, I think this film is great. There are better films out there, including better disaster films, but there are so many films that are ten times worse yet get better reviews. That's probably because they have better actors or are more realistic - but the job of a movie is to entertain, and this film does that brilliantly.

BAD NEWS - Unlikeable female lead in Anne Hesch, who had too foul a mouth for me. Other irritating characters with stupid dialog. A predictable ending with the needlessly drawn out save-the-daughter scene trying for maximum suspense.

GOOD NEWS - Some awesome disaster scenes. Hollywood's special-effects just keep getting more awesome as the years go on. A fast-moving story that was just about the right length. A likable lead character played by Tommy Lee Jones.

Overall, a movie that keeps your attention but doesn't get your respect with the dumb dialog.

I first saw this with my friends in Regal theater, South Mumbai in 1997.

Those times there were no trailers or YouTube or any reviews. Enjoyed it a bit then but aft revisiting it, i found it to b lame.

The film doesnt have any tension or suspense. It has the same lava stuff going on again n again. The best part is, the film's name is Volcano but we dont get to see any mountain bursting. At times, the lava looked too fake. Even the plan and the strategy to contain/pool the lava and later divert the lava's direction is a big lol.

Anne Heche's character is a scientist but the character does stupid stuff.

The only good thing is the way Stan Olber (John Carroll Lynch) saves the driver. The jumping into the lava flow n throwing the driver to safety is epic.