Volcano (1997)

A volcano erupts in downtown Los Angeles, threatening to destroy the city.

Director:

Mick Jackson

Writers:

Jerome Armstrong (story), Jerome Armstrong (screenplay)

Stars:

Tommy Lee Jones, Anne Heche, Gaby Hoffmann

1 win & 1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Tommy Lee Jones	...	Mike Roark
Anne Heche	...	Dr. Amy Barnes
Gaby Hoffmann	...	Kelly Roark
Don Cheadle	...	Emmit Reese
Jacqueline Kim	...	Dr. Jaye Calder
Keith David	...	Police Lieutenant Ed Fox
John Corbett	...	Norman Calder
Michael Rispoli	...	Gator Harris
John Carroll Lynch	...	Stan Olber
Marcello Thedford	...	Kevin
Laurie Lathem	...	Rachel
Bert Kramer	...	L.A. Fire Chief
Bo Eason	...	Bud McVie
James MacDonald	...	Terry Jasper (as James G. MacDonald)
Dayton Callie	...	Roger Lapher

Storyline

Something unspeakably chilling is ultimately starting to heat up at The City of Los Angeles! Beneath the famed La Brea Tar Pits, a raging volcano has formed, raining a storm of deadly fire bombs and an endless tide of white-hot lava upon the stunned city!

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Plot Keywords:

la brea tar pits | lava bomb | firefighter | fire truck | 1990s | 

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Taglines:

It's Hotter than Hell!

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Genres:

Action | Drama | Sci-Fi | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for intense depiction of urban disaster and related injuries

Did You Know?

Trivia

Don Cheadle and Keith David both later appeared in "Crash" (2004).

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Goofs

When Kelly is in the hospital, she has an injury several inches long on her left cheek. In the final scene of the movie, when they are standing out in the rain, the injury is gone.

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Quotes

Kelly Roark: [in the car] I wanna go home.
Roark: We're going to the safest place in town, baby, I promise.

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Alternate Versions

To attract more viewers the German theatrical version was cut to receive a "Not under 12" rating. The German video release contains the complete version and is rated "Not under 16".

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Connections

Featured in Honest Trailers: Twister (2020)

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Soundtracks

Buck Your Head
Written by Dillinger and Juvenile
Performed by Juster
Courtesy of TVT Records

User Reviews

A no-brainer but with no pretense!

Adequate little piece of idiocy as downtown LA plays host to a volcano! Thats right folks, Mount Versuvius does Grauman's Chinese! Ostensibly the simplest of FX needed - simply a modicum of re-colored mud and hey, we got lava!...pretty much a standard color-option within Microsoft Word! They do it well enough though, I gotta admit it LOOKS hot!

Once you put aside the stupidity of it all, its quite a fun movie, one of the better time fillers. Certainly an improvement on the wannabe cerebral companion piece DANTE'S PEAK! Tommy Lee cuts a suitably hands-on emergency resource controller and Kelly Roarke does her career resume no harm as his daughter under siege from lava-bombs at a critical stage of proceedings. Undoubtedly the best scene is that in the wrecked subway as the red hot lava flows beneath the train...you can feel the heat!

Anne Heche is well, the insufferable Anne Heche. How anyone can derive pleasure from watching this actress is beyond me. She is colder than Antarctica and emotes on a par with Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter). I mean to say, anyone with Van Sant's PSYCHO to her credit has to be a re-think!

As an action-fest VOLCANO is as good as anything, like the lava, just let it flow!

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English Spanish German

Release Date:

25 April 1997 (USA)

Also Known As:

Volcano

Filming Locations:

190th Street & Western Avenue, Torrance, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$90,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$14,581,740, 27 April 1997

Gross USA:

$49,323,468

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$122,823,468

Company Credits

Production Co:

Twentieth Century Fox, Donner/Shuler-Donner Productions, Moritz Original

Technical Specs

Runtime:

104 min

Sound Mix:

DTS Dolby Digital SDDS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1