Dante's Peak (1997)

The movie Dante's Peak failed at the box office for a number of reasons: 1) It's a disaster movie that doesn't take place in a major city; 2) The title "Dante's Peak" makes it sound less like a volcano thriller more like a coming of age comedy such as, say, Saint Elmo's Fire and 3) It was a big budget summer blockbuster released in...February. But the truth is that the film, starring Double 007--er, Pierce Brosnan--as a scientist who gets caught in a disaster only a screenwriter addicted to caffeine could conceive, is blast.

Thomas Crown--er, I mean, Harry Dalton--is a volcanologist whose girlfriend was killed in an eruption in the Philippines four years ago. Now, he's being sent to the small mountainside community of Dante's Peak to examine some unusual geothermal readings. Then two people die in an overheated hot spring, but as the town has recently been named one of the most desirable places to live in America, the local government is still uneasy to start evacuating. ("You say 'barracuda' and everyone says 'Huh? What?' But you say 'shark', and we've got a panic on our hands on the Fourth of July"). As more researchers come in, Harry befriends the town mayor, Rachel Wando (Linda Hamilton). Will their relationship grow? Is Dante's Peak going to erupt? Is the sun going to rise tomorrow? I think you know the answer to all these questions.

Now, granted, the movie really starts to slow down in the middle. It's mostly just scenes of people driving around the beautiful forests of Dante's Peak and drinking coffee. Yeah...coffee. This movie has a strange obsession with the stuff. In what seems like every other scene, someone is consuming or mentioning a cup of joe. Maybe it was supposed to be a movie about coffee before the script was changed to accommodate a volcano? I don't know. But anyways, when the volcano finally blows its top, it's fantastic. From what I've heard, it's a pretty accurate representation of an eruption...except for the fact that the main characters manage to survive everything nature throws at them. Really. That's just another disaster movie cliche.

Speaking of which, I love how Mayor Wando, her two kids, and Harry find the family dog unharmed by all the lava nearby and are able to save him. In fact, just about every disaster movie has a dog that miraculously survives everything. That's like saying, "Hey, tens of thousands of people are dead, but if the dog lives, everything is okay!"

So this definitely isn't a movie to be taken too seriously. In fact, one of the things in it I found most silly was the Wando family's grandma (Elizabeth Hoffman). She's skeptical to leave her cabin house even when lava is surrounding it. Also, she at first despises Brosnan's character ("Oh, you're one of those folks who was sent to Mount St. Helens. Well, nothing happened there...and nothing's happening HERE!") One of my favorite scenes has got to be when Granny and the other characters find two squirrels killed by volcanic gases. "There must be some sort of squirrel epidemic...they're dropping like that all over the mountain." For some reason, I just find that line hilarious.

That's pretty much all you can say about Dante's Peak, that it's entertaining and often funny--despite the fact that thousands are dying in the eruption. Does it have a happy ending? Yes, but actually, it's kind of weird--Dalton and the other characters are all smiles and hugs as they escape from the burning rubble of their once-beloved town. But hey, don't question Dalton's logic. As Mayor Wando says: "A man who looks at a rock must have a lot on his mind."