Miami Magma

Miami Magma is about as good as you'd expect from a TV disaster movie: It isn't very good. There's a big asterisk here. As a low-budget endeavor, with inherently low expectations, there's a chance of being relatively good. Not as in the cult classic line, "So bad, it's good"; rather, the more respectable, "It isn't that bad," so it's good.

The plot moves the standard volcano scenario out of the usual places, all the way to South Florida. This is a way to keep it fresh, most likely. The opportunity is somewhat wasted. Miami culture, real or stereotyped, barely figures-in except for an ill-fated Spring Break beach party. (This intends to set some sort of subplot, but the film proceeds to forget about the clever survivor). The city scenes clearly were not shot in Miami judging from the trees.

The unlikely location is rationalized well. The plot starts with Dr. Antoinette Vitrini (Rachel Hunter), a college professor who isn't taken seriously in her research suggesting the Gulf of Mexico is a giant caldera pulsing with magma. Enter evil oil company. The only thing more dangerous than an evil oil company is an evil oil company drilling into a secret supervolcano, in a world where regulation is nowhere to be found. It's easy work covering-up a sunken oil rig and passing-off the CEO's self-destruction in a manic steam accident as a heart attack. (The authorities either missed the scorched corpse and witness who watched it happen, or they don't exist - more likely the latter in this Miami.) Until now a quiet voice of conscience, the CEO'S lackey engineer Ray Miller (Cleavant Derricks) quickly sells out to the Board, which also happens to be evil, and becomes consummately awful. Because why not?

Isolated fissures and steam events occur throughout Miami, roasting characters who are introduced just to be roasted. Antoinette, her ex-husband Brad (J. D. Evermore), flirtatious sister Emily (Melissa Ordway), and research wiz/unwitting chick magnet Brandon (Griff Furst) embark on a mission to thwart Evil Oil Company's illegal projects before the city blows. The writing is quite good as the plot escalates. Tracking devices, traitors, imposters, arson, helicopters, kidnappings, ransoms, shootouts in factories loaded with dangerous chemicals. It's all here. The final drama is not found cliché self-sacrifice, but one character's dignified redemption. It has touch, maybe even soul.

Miami Magma is full of faults and incongruities. The ominous background music will not shut up, even during inane conversations. There aren't enough extras panicking about the coming cataclysm, making us rely on the scramble of our heroes to remember anything is going on. Most of the effects are created by smoke machines and cheesy fire animations. All this can be forgiven in a B-list disaster movie.

Interestingly, the inherent genre and money-enforced limitations of Miami Magma help make it a competent movie. It is priced out of effects-crazy excitement; the boneheaded kind where one can't even tell what is going on, just that the situation is bad, very bad. Miami Magma relies, instead, on solid performances by the actors and a credible script. No, it isn't high art. Yes, it's built on blatant unrealism. But you basically know what you're getting when you sit down in your armchair to watch something like this. This film gives you your time's worth.

This was a very fun movie to watch, full of action. Dumb science, but not bad. Certainly it's not awful science, more like "implausible." Even if one supposed there might be a volcano in Miami, the special effects were not in accordance with what one might expect a true volcano to do. Also, I found the final scene of the movie startling. If it's what I think it was, then it was the final, most implausible special effect of all. On the other hand, if it were plausible, then it wouldn't be much of a movie, more like a docudrama perhaps.

The characters were what made the movie interesting, though even there, it seemed that people were acting in contradiction. One minute, a character is acting moral and wants to do the right thing, the next, they are willing to throw everything they said out the window for a cut of the proceeds. Another character has a history of being dishonest, then suddenly they have a conscience. A young woman is flaunting herself, then suddenly she becomes mature. I guess it was the inconsistencies that amused me more than anything.

Just one last comment: This movie played under the name "Swamp Volcano" on the SyFy Channel but it is the same movie.

"World on Fire" as the DVD is titled when purchased from Amazon, or "Miami Magma" as titled here on IMDb is definitely one of the more boring and uneventful of natural disaster movies that I have seen. It even makes "Dante's Peak" seem like a masterpiece.

The story is about an underground volcano that threaten Miami, and it is up to two scientists to save the city and avert a catastrophe.

Of course it is, every single disaster movie follows this exact same script and mold down to the core - no pun intended. However, "World on Fire" just never made it out of the trench to so speak. The plot and storyline was as predictable as they come, and even for a natural disaster movie it was painstakingly predictable to the point where even a blind man would see it coming.

Throughout the entire movie there is but a handful of oddly placed localized incidents involving magma or superheated steam. There was surprisingly little magma in the movie, which really was a disappointing lack of things for the movie, and it worked as an anchor around the movie, dragging it down severely in its enjoyment. And also throughout the entire movie there is not a single moment where you feel that the entire city of Miami was in any danger at all. And then it just ended - with the scientists saving the day of course.

As for the acting in the movie, well it wasn't Oscar nominated material, let me just put it like that. I was mildly thrilled to see Brad Dourif's name on the cast list, but it was a short lived thrill and not even he could muster to lift up this movie.

And don't get suckered in by the fancy DVD cover the way that I did. It promises a massive volcano erupting over a metropolis on fire, and for some reason there are celestial bodies on the sky also erupting with fire. But nothing, and I cannot stretch the word nothing enough here, even remotely like the DVD cover is to be found anywhere in the entire movie. It was just false advertising and luring with hopes of a massive natural disaster movie, that just turned out to be a fluke and nothing more than a fizzling lit match.

If you enjoy natural disaster movies, then know that there are far, far better movies available on the market, and "World on Fire" is hardly worth the effort of spending 97 minutes on. "World on Fire"? Nah, more like "Nothing on Fire".

I doubt there are many movies with such poor scripting and acting as this little beauty. Hunter is terribly wooden, but looks magnificent and everytime you hear that antipodean accent your crying out for more - well I am anyway. Pretty standard bulk B movie fodder plot with some pseudo science chucked in to give the appearance of intelligence, but don't let that fool you as the brain cells have left the building. Just watch it for super heroine Rachel and a brilliant cheesy turn by Cleavant Derricks as an evil oil driller.

Movies can be made with many purposes in mind: to entertain, to provoke, to express or elicit emotion. This movie neither failed, nor succeeded in any of these categories to a great degree.

The acting was serviceable, neither good nor laughable. The script failed to register any response or provoke any emotion. The camera work was...decent? Ok? The packing was solid though, never sticking in one place or on one scene for very long. The only parts that were enjoyable were the three or four truly schlocky moments, which are what people watch disaster movies for. Those ranged from, "That doesn't work that way." to "Yes! Hole! Through! The chest!" The effects are suitably TV movie level and thus, the most ironically enjoyable part of the film.

Neither painful to sit through, nor enjoyable enough to sit through again, nor recommend it.