If you ever find yourself in the middle of some disaster area, whether it be a tornado, alien invasion or a lava attack, the trick is to follow the dog. Regardless of how many millions of people are killed, that dog will surely pop out of the debris eventually and start happily licking everyone's face.
This and other laughable cliches are playing at a theater near you in the latest of a continuing surge of disaster epics, "Volcano." In fact, "Volcano" has two dogs gleefully avoiding death as a volcano suddenly erupts in the middle of LA and starts wreaking havoc.
Those who want to see destruction on a mass scale will not be disappointed. Director Mick Jackson shows a great deal of technical achievement in staging some of the opening scenes. We expect to see lava, we want to see lava and Jackson does a good job of toying with our expectations.
Early on, the lava lurking below the surface plays like a hidden predator as it slowly gets closer to the surface. All the while Tommy Lee Jones, playing the gung-ho head of Emergency Management, and his perky geologist helper, Anne Heche, try to figure out what is going on.
When the lava suddenly does burst through, it seems as if we may have a great movie on hand. Trucks are flipped, buildings are set ablaze and these cool lava bombs keep soaring through the air like deadly missiles. The go-for-broke intensity of these scenes manages to carry the film over its many improbabilities.
Creeping down L.A.'s avenues the lava causes the population to evacuate and many choose to just cut their losses.
However when the lava starts heading for a hospital and residential area, the people of L.A. must unite and fight back. It is when the lava, clearly the best part of the movie, stops its destruction and the focus switches to those battling it that the film goes down hill fast.
By the time the closing credits start to roll, the film manages to cheekily dispense every disaster movie cliche in the book. With each slow motion shot of someone jumping across lava or diving to save someone the film becomes more and more laughable.
It is done so poorly that the film seems to be one step short of full blown parody. When Jones shoots up from under the rubble of a recently collapsed high-riser with a kid in one arm and a big smile on his face, you cannot believe that anyone, especially experienced filmmakers, could expect the scene to be taken seriously.
Granted, anyone who expects a great deal of intelligence from a film with the tag line "the coast is toast," deserves to be disappointed. But with a target as easy as LA, there should be some spark of wit. Especially considering that one of Jackson's earlier works was the Steve Martin vehicle "LA Story," which did a great job of satirizing and glorifying the world's most plastic city.
There is one pathetic attempt at social commentary when the film tackles the ever present L.A. race issue. But five-year-old Rodney King jokes and stereotypical white cops and black punks is not the way to go about doing it. In the end, when the film wants us to rejoice at an L.A. that has come together, it plays like an After School Special spun out of control.
The two saving graces of the film are Anne Heche and, of course, the lava. Heche manages to come off as intelligent, strong and incredibly attractive all at the same time. Fortunately, the film down plays the unsettling romance between her and the much older Jones.
The lava was good because, quite simply, that is where most of the film's reported $100 million budget went to. Unfortunately, you cannot make a film just about lava. You have to have these pesky things called characters and dialogue.
