I guess the dilemma with these disaster movies is that the film makers have to come up with a storyline to frame these disasters, and characters to insert in the disaster, so that we root for them to survive. Usually the opposite happens when the characters are so bland or annoying, that we just as soon see them get buried in molten lava or whatever. In Dante's Peak, we have a small town in the shadow of an active volcano, rather unconvincingly super-imposed on a location shoot. Pierce Brosnan, between jobs as 007, plays a geologist who comes to town to assess the volcano. Linda Hamilton as the widow mayor. These two are likeable enough, and they have their obligatory romance. But we also have her annoying kids, the grandma, the dog, and another "merry band" of scientists who are all class clown types. These merry bands can be found in other disaster films. Anyway, the volcano finally blows, with so/so pyroclastic flows and lava fountains. We see a pickup truck that can drive underwater, a truck that can drive on top of molten lava, a stubborn grandma who won't leave her cabin even though lava is flowing thru it, and a man drowning in a river as his colleagues stand and watch with their arms folded. So yeah, I guess it's entertaining after all.
Review of Dante's Peak
