Old Stuff
Dante's Peak (1997)
Directed by Roger Donaldson
1997 is Hollywood's year of the volcano. Both efforts at volcanism on film are disasters. In "Dante's Peak", a bodega-owning Rachel Wando (Linda Hamilton) is also the mayor of a small ski resort that sits on a Mt. St. Helens-esque volcano, and as Harry Dalton, 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, Harry and Rachel 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 on 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. -- Rating: $1.25
Tom Graney -- copyright 1997 Hollywood Outsider