For some reason Amazon Prime recommended this, along with a number of other Syfy network movies. And wow, what a mess. Almost bad enough to be funny.
Some sort of dodgy government/military-sponsored deep mining venture has gone terribly wrong, causing -- it is not clear how -- lava eruptions around the world, the first one on a farm in Washington state. The very first scene is a gratuitous bedroom romp between a hot farmer and his attractive wife. Then magma interruptus! The farmer's dog is barking at a well outside, and the farmer gets, well, VERY hot when he looks down into the abyss.
From there it's down hill (down the tunnell?) into a cauldrom of the usual SyFy cliches and plot conventions. The lead (Luke Perry) is a not-in-the-mainstream geologist sounding the warning claxon to non-believers. There is a past love affair --- rekindling -- with the female pilot of a giant boring machine that will plumb the depths of the Juan de Fuca Subduction Zone. Also two comic-relief sidekick grad students. (For absoluteley no reason one of them tries to ask out a 60ish-someting femalke scientist -- weird).
Then we have the gruff, cigar-chomping general (Michael Dorn!). The evil Marine Corp major and his good-guy captain. Another scientist who is a professional and romantic rival to the Perry character.
Oh, and a nuclear weapon. It's the solution to the whole lava-spew crisis. This is the third or fourth SyFy movie I've seen where the big plot device is nuclear.
I'd give it a 2 star, but the Pandemic has so lowered my expectations that it gets an extra star. Watch to catch all the cliches. And maybe get a good laugh or two.
Some sort of dodgy government/military-sponsored deep mining venture has gone terribly wrong, causing -- it is not clear how -- lava eruptions around the world, the first one on a farm in Washington state. The very first scene is a gratuitous bedroom romp between a hot farmer and his attractive wife. Then magma interruptus! The farmer's dog is barking at a well outside, and the farmer gets, well, VERY hot when he looks down into the abyss.
From there it's down hill (down the tunnell?) into a cauldrom of the usual SyFy cliches and plot conventions. The lead (Luke Perry) is a not-in-the-mainstream geologist sounding the warning claxon to non-believers. There is a past love affair --- rekindling -- with the female pilot of a giant boring machine that will plumb the depths of the Juan de Fuca Subduction Zone. Also two comic-relief sidekick grad students. (For absoluteley no reason one of them tries to ask out a 60ish-someting femalke scientist -- weird).
Then we have the gruff, cigar-chomping general (Michael Dorn!). The evil Marine Corp major and his good-guy captain. Another scientist who is a professional and romantic rival to the Perry character.
Oh, and a nuclear weapon. It's the solution to the whole lava-spew crisis. This is the third or fourth SyFy movie I've seen where the big plot device is nuclear.
I'd give it a 2 star, but the Pandemic has so lowered my expectations that it gets an extra star. Watch to catch all the cliches. And maybe get a good laugh or two.