Dante's Peak (1997, PG-13)

Not to disgrace the movie, but Dante's Peak is slightly special effects driven over character driven.  It's similar to Jaws: in Jaws we only cared about the shark, and we only wanted to see the shark attack scenes.  In Dante's Peak, we only care about the volcano, and we only want to see the volcano eruption scenes.  The eruption scenes are truly cool and awesome.  The volcano erupts, clouding the sky with ash, fireballs raining down on the city and lava pouring down forested mountains.

The characters themselves are standard issue for a typical action-disaster film like this.  Pierce Brosnan's character has lost his wife in a previous volcano eruption attack somewhere in Latin America, and he's still trying to get over it and move on with his life.  Linda Hamilton's character is divorced and trying to raise her two kids while being mayor of Dante's Peak, the "second most desirable place to live in the United States".  When Brosnan asks the store clerk what the first desirable place was, the clerk replies, "eh, some crap town back in Montana".  Anyway, it comes as no surprise that a romance blossoms between Brosnan and Hamilton, with Brosnan becoming a father figure to her two kids.

As far as disaster movies go, Dante's Peak isn't bad.  It's just not a necessarily good one either.  In that sense, it's a standard issue disaster flick with some action.  The special, visual and sound effects are all incredible.  But Dante's Peak just isn't that original.  The volcano is about to blow up.  No one believes the main character, so they do nothing about it.  Romance sparks between the two leads.  Then the volcano blows up.  Then everyone is running and scurrying to get out of the town as the special effects blow you away.

For the most part, Dante's Peak is sufficiently entertaining, being a movie that actually uses real science.  It just would have been better if the plot hadn't been so contrived and it was just more original in general.  The acting is fine, the direction is satisfactory, but in the end, it's the special effects, which again are pretty cool, that steal the show, over the development of the human characters.

                          ***/5