Dante's Peak (1997)
director: roger donaldson
cast: pierce brosnan, linda hamilton, jamie renee smith, jeremy foley, elizabeth hoffman, charles hallahan, grant heslov
1997
is Hollywood's year of the volcano. Both efforts at volcanism are disasters.
In "Dante's Peak", a bodega-owning Linda Hamilton is also the mayor
of a small ski resort that sits on a Mt. St. Helens-esque volcano and Pierce
Brosnan plays a nimrod scientist so lacking in credibility that he can't even
convince his friends and fellow volcanologists of a blindingly obvious disaster
in the works. Again, lava is treated as a basically harmless substance unless
touched. Example, Pierce and Linda decide to take her brats on a car ride over
a river of molten lava. Instead of being cooked like lobsters, they escape with
little more than melted tires. Darwin is thwarted, again. You just know the
couple has escaped incineration so they can hump each other and pass their mentally
deficient genes to a new generation of meat-heads. The movie does have one truly
harrowing boat ride sequence over a mountain lake of acid. Worth watching for
cheap laughs. -- Tom Graney
$1.25
© 1997 Hollywood Outsider™