Volcano

Deft filmmaking that allows the special effects to help, not be, the story combines with an actual script to make Volcano a smart, self-aware, and most of all fun disaster movie. more

But a great sense of pace is a wonderful thing, and director Jackson and his crew (who made good use of hand-held and Steadicam shots and reportedly averaged an impressive 30 to 40 camera setups a day) move so quickly from shot to shot and location to location that viewers have a limited time to dwell on the film's predictable implausibilities. more

In fact, this is one of the best pure disaster movies ever made (not that it has much competition). Congratulations to director Mick Jackson for a job well done. more

Watching this film is a little bit like getting mauled and tickled at the same time. The filmmakers have given the whole shebang a hefty levity, and that's not easy to accomplish in a full-scale disaster movie. more

The secret of Volcano's success as a better-than-average disasterama is its nonstop pace. more

A furiously paced popcorn picture whose outrageous implausibility is somewhat amusing, Volcano delivers enough spectacular action to get it off to a hot B.O. start, although like the lava in the picture, it may not flow quite as far as anticipated. more

I had a pretty good time at Volcano. The reason I didn't have a better time is that the characters aren't just schlocky, they're boring. more

The fun is in the mayhem, and there's plenty of it. more

But for anyone willing to swallow a large pinch of salt there is much to enjoy in the film's numerous nail-munching, white-knuckle set-pieces variously employing firetruck ladders, subway trains and a finale so ridiculous that it just... might... work. more

In Volcano, the thrills are so well wrought that they eventually lose their novelty and become numbing. more

I've watched this movie dozens of times, the first being at an ampitheater in Indiana on a cold fall day. I hadn't heard of it before but the tickets were free, so I checked it out. Wow! What a movie! I couldn't believe it, the entire time I was sitting on the edge of my seat, I left with no fingernails at all. All the actors were just terriffic, especially Tommy Lee Jones, who just adds flair to any film he's in. I'm not sure where people get off saying that this movie is too fantastical, either. As they say in the film, one day in Mexico a man saw a smoking fissure in his field; the next... more

Amazon Verified Purchase ( What's this? ) In 1997 there were two eagerly anticipated volcano movies released. Dante's Peak was more of a blockbuster hit, but not very accurate from a geologist's standpoint. Volcano was more realistic and accurate. It was nice to see a disaster movie depicted as it would naturally happen. Tommy Lee Jones and Anne Heche were wonderful to watch! more

There are a lot of reasons why this fundamental concept of this movie is implausible, and a number of dumb things happen in the movie, and yet the concept itself is interesting and was handled reasonably well. Similar to the "other" volcano movie, "Dante's Peak," there are several indications that something geologic is happening. Death by hot gas blast is usually a pretty solid indication of that sort of thing (which happens before the volcano does its thing). After a number of interesting things happen a volcano bursts to the ground. The scenes of the volcano going "boom" are among the... more