Review of Dante's Peak (1997) by Jessica G — 08 Sep 2009

I like this movie. =(.

And I don't like liking it, but it's one of the "better" volcano movies that I currently seen.

(Hollywood, take a hint. Stop making crappy superhero movies and make a decent movies about volcanos!).

***SPOILER WARNING***.

First of all, I am very fascinated by Volcanos, they are so powerful and destructive, everytime I watch them on TV I can imagine one day the earth will go under in a gigantic volcanoic explosion. When I watch documentaries on TV about people who have gotten in the way of a Volcano, I instantly feel how terrifying it must be to be even close to a volcano, never knowing when they will blow...

This movie starts out good, you get to know Harry Dalton (the hottie Pierce Brosnan, probably the biggest reason for me to watch this movie. I hate James Bond movies. So "mr Bond" as an volcanologist - yummy.) and his team of volcanologists. Two of them are never named, the third person isn't very interesting. The boss, Paul Dreyfus (played by Charles Hallahan) is the one sending Harry to check on the town to assess if they need to come and take a look.

They are visiting a town which has shown some changes since the last reading - Dante's Peak. (made up town).

I liked that Linda Hamilton's character felt real. A busy mother and the mayor of the town. You can feel the stress and responsibilities pulling on her in every direction. She has two kids, Graham who I guess is 12 or 13, and Lauren who is 10. Graham is disobedient and does whatever he feels like, Lauren is a good kid though and really loves her mom. They also have a grandmother that doesn't like Rachel. (mother in law).

***SPOILER WARNING***.

The problem with this movie is that, despite the beginning and build up is very good, is that the movie is a... disaster... when the volcano finally blows.

You get these little clues before the eruption, Harry tries convince the town to evacuate, but Paul Dreyfus (the boss), says that an evacuation could start a panic which would make the tourists not come to town = no money.

This is what happened to him another time, when the volcano didn't erupt, but the tourists were too scared to come.

From this on, Paul is portrayed as a "bad guy" for some really weird reason.

He thinks Harry is overreacting, the only real proof they have something is up is that two people died in a hot spring and that animals fall dead in the forest.

As Paul said, it could be any other reason but the volcano, so I don't understand AT ALL why he is a bad guy from now on.

More and more clues are left, just the day before the team should leave, Harry discovers that the water supply is contaminated with sulfur. He shows this to Paul. They both agree this is a clear sign of an eruption.

Now, Paul isn't a bad guy, he agrees with Harry that they SHOULD evacuate, but he is still treated as the bad guy!

Why??

Now here's something stupid. The sulfur discovery happens near midnight. Like, maybe, around 9-11 Pm or something.

Rachel issue a warning by the TV news, HOWEVER, before anybody evacuates there's a meeting in the school 6 PM the next day!!

Why, why, why aren't they telling people to just go?

What could they possibly need to discuss?

It's so stupid!

So nobody evacuates during the day, they just casually wait around for this meeting at school. Before Rachel and Harry go there, they tell the kids to pack up some stuff and they'll be back after the meeting. (stupid).

Need to mention though, they try talking grandma to come down from the mountain. She loves her grandkids, but for some unknown reason she just refuses.

So she hangs up and won't pick up.

Harry and Rachel go to the meeting.

At the meeting, people ask "Can we evacuate now?".

"No, of course not, you need to be at this meeting and listen to nonsense about how to evacuate and read these f:ing manuals.".

Okay, that's not what Rachel said, she just says "Yes, you can leave anytime you want.".

Why didn't they just go, like, hours before??

Of course the volcano erupts when everybody is at this very important meeting and people scream and panic.

THEN they suddenly take their cars to get the hell out. So of course the traffic blocks the way.

Rachel and Harry go to pick up the kids, but guess what?

The kids, who must be about 8-12, becomes Superkids. They take a car up to the mountain to get the grandma.

Actually this whole movie, after the volcano finally erupts, is all about Harry and gang getting out of danger at every last second. And it's so unrealistic and stupid this movie deserves minus 3482374.

How the kids actually get there when ash completely blocks their view is beyond me.

It's pitch black, Graham doesn't know how to make the windshield vipers go faster and yet they have no problem getting there. (or FINDING there for that matter).

Harry and Rachel follow them up the mountain in their own car and falling debris block the road.

Both kids, Harry and Rachel makes it up to grandma.

Rachel gets mad at Ruth, but Ruth doesn't care.

"Blah blah, the mountain won't hurt us." like a cult member or something.

Harry tells them to pack so that they can go. (how I don't know, since the road is blocked), but... oh god...

One thing that annoys me beyond all else, is that Harry tells grandma to pack up quickly so they can leave. Grandma takes a loooooooooooooooooooo... *2378 minutes later*..... ong time to pack all of her lovely belongings. she even stops to look at old photos of when the house was built...

She really doesn't get a clue that the volcano has erupted.

That there is lava coming down.

Harry doesn't even seem to mind it either.

Anyway, then she comes down the stairs with Rachel, lava breaks into the back of the house... and the first thing grandma does... throws all the things on the floor and then they run away from the house. >_<.

Yes, the stupid !"¤&# drops all of her belongings she spent ages to pack in the very last second.

UH!

It actually gets A LOT worse. Possibly the worst of the whole movie.

Harry and the gang finds a boat by the house, so they take it and get away. (because the lava melted the cars).

The house blows up, grandma whines.

Yada, yada.

Then they discover that the water has turned into acid and is melting the boat.

All the logic in this scene is thrown out the window (or in the lake and melted... -_-).

Though the whole lake is acid, it only manages to burn the actual propeller, but not the bottom of the boat.

So when they loose the power and are like 30 meters from the other side of the lake, Harry takes his jacket and "paddles" with it - and it doesn't melt!

Uh!

Cotton works against acid!

It gets a lot worse.

They realize they aren't going to make it.

Grandma jumps out of the boat and "pushes" it to the bridge at the end of the lake.

She just casually walks through the acid.

Also the movie magically makes the boat appear just 2 meters away from the bridge when grandma gets into the water, but seconds before they were at least 10 meters away.

Anyway, then when the others gets out of the boat, THEN she starts feeling the pain.

The acid water is up to her waist, but when she gets to the shore, only her legs have been burnt. They completely melt away I guess.

So it's basically magic acid water, only burns some things and not others.

When grandma later dies, I bawled my eyes out when I was like 14. But now I don't really care anymore. The whole acid scene is just SO stupid.

The other volcanologists have returned to town to evacuate people who were still there (I guess?), but when they are there, debris comes crashing down on the only bridge out of there, so they have to leave.

Of course the "bad guy Paul" gets stuck on the bridge with his car. Come on.

So he dies. Nobody cares.

When the other people THINKS Harry died, they cry. COME ON!!

Anyway, Harry makes 2 superman attempts before getting back to town.

First he finds a car that he drives through lava, it punctures all the tires, but he still manages to drive it out. And save a dog! Wow. >_<.

Then, with all the punctured tires, he gets back to town. Somebody conveniently left a computer on that shows that the volcanoes pyroclastic cloud is about to come.

It's basically a cloud that moves 200-300 mph and destroys everything in it's path because of it's superheated ash and rocks.

And of course Harry gets away from it with the car with ALL TIRES PUNCTURED.

At this point, I just stop watching.

I can't believe this movie is my favorite >_<.