Dante's Peak
3/4
Starring: Pierce Brosnan, Linda Hamilton, Jamie Renee Smith, Jeremy Foley, Charles Hallahan, Elizabeth Hoffman
Rated PG-13 for Disaster-Related Peril and Gore
When I was growing up, we had a box of VHS tapes (how times have changed...) that could only be watched on family movie night. We had two cabinets in the basement for "lesser" movies to sate my voracious appetite for movies, but the ones upstairs were the Holy Grail. "True Lies," "The Peacemaker," "Tommy Boy," and "Air Force One" were included among them. So was "Dante's Peak." It's not as strong of a film as the others, but it's still damn entertaining.
Harry Dalton (Brosnan...surely it can't be a coincidence that he shares the surname of Timothy Dalton, one of his James Bond predecessors) is a volcanologist based out of Washington. A few years after an eruption killed his girlfriend, his boss tells him to head to Dante's Peak to investigate some murmurs from the volcano right next door. Almost as soon as he's there, he realizes that something's cooking (and it's not deer meat). He wants to warn the town, but his boss thinks otherwise. Of course, Harry's hunch is right, and Dante's Peak goes kaboom.
The performances are effective, but they're dwarfed by the special effects. Still, the acting by Brosnan and Hamilton is enough to get us on their side. Brosnan plays Harry as an aloof scientist, but he's more than capable of caring about people. Hamilton plays Rachel Wando, a local shop owner, town mayor and single mom rolled into one. She's very good here, but like Brosnan, there's only so much that she can do. Also worth mentioning is character actor Charles Callahan, who plays Harry's boss, Paul. It is a requirement of the genre to have someone disagree with the lead before things go to hell. It allows the tension to grow and the voice of reason to the lead's instincts. However, unlike in some entries in the genre, Paul is not a jerk. He's a nice guy who just disagrees with Harry. Both have been in this situation before with different outcomes.
The film is directed by Roger Donaldson, who has been working in the film industry since the late 70's. He knows what he's doing, and he creates a pulse-pounding genre movie. Unfortunately, the script is on the thin side, and so are the minor performances. With a little more TLC, this could have been a masterpiece, on par with "Twister" (which it shares a mild kinship with). Of course, this isn't what I thought when I was a kid, so my modern review may be a little jaded. Regardless, it gets a recommendation from me with no reservations.
Starring: Pierce Brosnan, Linda Hamilton, Jamie Renee Smith, Jeremy Foley, Charles Hallahan, Elizabeth Hoffman
Rated PG-13 for Disaster-Related Peril and Gore
When I was growing up, we had a box of VHS tapes (how times have changed...) that could only be watched on family movie night. We had two cabinets in the basement for "lesser" movies to sate my voracious appetite for movies, but the ones upstairs were the Holy Grail. "True Lies," "The Peacemaker," "Tommy Boy," and "Air Force One" were included among them. So was "Dante's Peak." It's not as strong of a film as the others, but it's still damn entertaining.
Harry Dalton (Brosnan...surely it can't be a coincidence that he shares the surname of Timothy Dalton, one of his James Bond predecessors) is a volcanologist based out of Washington. A few years after an eruption killed his girlfriend, his boss tells him to head to Dante's Peak to investigate some murmurs from the volcano right next door. Almost as soon as he's there, he realizes that something's cooking (and it's not deer meat). He wants to warn the town, but his boss thinks otherwise. Of course, Harry's hunch is right, and Dante's Peak goes kaboom.
The performances are effective, but they're dwarfed by the special effects. Still, the acting by Brosnan and Hamilton is enough to get us on their side. Brosnan plays Harry as an aloof scientist, but he's more than capable of caring about people. Hamilton plays Rachel Wando, a local shop owner, town mayor and single mom rolled into one. She's very good here, but like Brosnan, there's only so much that she can do. Also worth mentioning is character actor Charles Callahan, who plays Harry's boss, Paul. It is a requirement of the genre to have someone disagree with the lead before things go to hell. It allows the tension to grow and the voice of reason to the lead's instincts. However, unlike in some entries in the genre, Paul is not a jerk. He's a nice guy who just disagrees with Harry. Both have been in this situation before with different outcomes.
The film is directed by Roger Donaldson, who has been working in the film industry since the late 70's. He knows what he's doing, and he creates a pulse-pounding genre movie. Unfortunately, the script is on the thin side, and so are the minor performances. With a little more TLC, this could have been a masterpiece, on par with "Twister" (which it shares a mild kinship with). Of course, this isn't what I thought when I was a kid, so my modern review may be a little jaded. Regardless, it gets a recommendation from me with no reservations.
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