It’s been so cold and frozen, I thought a good dose of lava might solve it. Somehow, someway, two large productions about volcanoes were released in the same year—1997—and I’m here to see which holds up better and which dissolves into either a lake of acid or a puddle of magma.
Dante’s Peak
This film has a lot going for it—Pierce Brosnan and Linda Hamilton star as middle-aged, thrown-together protagonists who team up to first convince the town and then escape it altogether. Set in the Washington mountains, Dante’s Peak deals out equal parts treacle and gore. Brosnan’s Harry Dalton—fresh out of an abusive situationship with another volcano that cost him his romantic partner and his fondness for exploding mountaintops—starts the action when he walks into Dante’s Peak during a summer town fair.
His assignment: checking out squirrelly seismic readings and flirting with Mayor Rachel Wando (Hamilton) who has an endearing but dim son-and-daughter duo and an absent partner or husband. Cue Dr. Dalton.
The first shots in Dante’s Peak are horrific—the retelling of Dalton’s lover’s final moments with the unnamed Other Volcano. Once we meet our main crew, the film quickly cuts to the next unsettling bit of volcanic activity. This time, instead of magma-through-the-skull horror, it’s a hot spring that gets way, way too hot, way too fast.
Dante’s Peak is equal parts family drama and the much more compelling story of a town that, up until the movie’s midpoint, sat comfortably on the lip of a dormant volcano. After saving one of Rachel’s kids from boiling himself alive, Handsome Harry spends the first half of the movie trying to convince everyone (including parts of his misfit crew of scientists) that the volcano is indeed going to blow, and the last half trying to get the hell out of Dante, which by then no longer has a peak.
Highlights from this film include the beautiful western Washington views and pines, small-town summer vibes, Linda Hamilton playing very against type, and exquisite exploding miniatures.
Oh—and the luckiest dog west of the Mississippi.
Volcano
The very first thing I’ll say about Volcano, also released in 1997, is that the biggest disaster in this film is its heavy-handed, relentlessly telegraphed racial harmony theme, which awkwardly carries through until the final scenes. Setting that aside, what we have here is essentially the city version of Dante’s Peak.
Volcano opens in L.A., where earthquakes are merely part of the morning commute and the construction crew places bets on magnitude and epicenter. In a slice-of-life montage, we glimpse quite a few of the major players—including a very oddly placed John Corbett—before centering on Our Fair Hero: Mike Roark (Tommy Lee Jones), the gravelly-voiced, perpetually burdened head of the OEM (Office of Emergency Management) and divorced dad of a teen. Anne Heche’s Dr. Amy Barnes struts on-screen as a photogenic seismologist sniffing around the La Brea Tar Pits for sulfur.
Things bubble, boil, and steam fairly early in the runtime, unlike Dante’s Peak. The characters talk fast and over one another, lending a welcome sense of realism to the dialogue. Unfortunately, the logical leaps pile up just as quickly, and the bubbling lava river would scorch us all if we paused too long to think about it.
One example: the volcanologist kneeling over a fissure, one knee on each side, steam wafting directly into her face as she calmly takes a sample. Another: the lava-puddle rescue.
Much of the film centers on the coordinated efforts of emergency personnel. Yet the tension dissipates surprisingly soon after the volcano initially blows with astounding visuals. The threat to the hospital (with Roark’s daughter inside) provides some suspense, but even a parade of heroic rescues through increasingly improbable circumstances isn’t enough to keep the plot from melting into indistinguishable goo.
Viewers can marvel at the pyrotechnics, or sympathize with the cast for the ash cloud they had to act through from the midpoint forward.
In the end, the daughter is saved, the city is saved, and romance quietly simmers between the sassy, brilliant scientist and the ever-capable Roark. Despite the brief black cloud of ash, the skies over L.A. return to their regularly scheduled sunshine.
Highlights include burning palm trees, fast-talking, fast-thinking characters, and ash.
Lots and lots of ash.
All in all, not quite as satisfying a watch as Dante’s Peak.
-MH