Volcano (1997 film)

In downtown Los Angeles, an earthquake strikes. Michael "Mike" Roark, the new director of the city's Office of Emergency Management, insists on coming to work to help with the crisis even though he has been on vacation with his daughter, Kelly. His associate, Emmit Reese, notes that the quake caused no major damage, but 7 utility workers are later burned to death in a storm drain at MacArthur Park. As a precaution, Mike tries to halt the subway lines near the location of the earthquake, though MTA Chairman Stan Olber believes that there is no threat to the trains. Seismologist Amy Barnes believes that a volcano may be forming beneath the city as the earthquake opens a fissure in the fault line, but she has insufficient evidence to make Mike take action. The next day, Amy and her assistant Rachel venture into the storm sewer to investigate. While they take samples, the San Andreas Fault unleashes a strong earthquake that strikes the city. Rachel falls into a crack and is killed by a rush of hot gases. A subway train derails from falling debris, and a power outage occurs across the entire city. Later, a small cinder cone volcano erupts from the La Brea Tar Pits. As Mike helps injured firefighters out of the area, lava begins to flow down Wilshire Boulevard. It incinerates everything in its path and kills two firefighters in an overturned fire truck. The father and daughter become separated, as Kelly is injured when a lava bomb burns her leg and is taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center along with other patients. Meanwhile, Stan leads his team through the tunnel to the derailed train to search for survivors. While they save everyone aboard, Stan rescues the driver just as lava reaches the train, causing it to disintegrate. Stan sacrifices his life by jumping into the lava flow to throw the driver to safety. Mike, Amy and LAPD lieutenant Ed Fox devise a plan to use concrete barriers to create a blockade, which obstructs the lava. A fleet of helicopters dumps water collected from the ocean to subdue the lava and volcano, forming a crust and making the plan a success. But Amy thinks the magma is still flowing underground through the subway because ash is still falling. When Mike helps her confirm her suspicions, she calculates that another eruption will occur at the end of the Red Line at Cedars-Sinai and, after calculating the speed of the flowing lava, determines that it will reach the end of the tunnel in 30 minutes. Mike devises another plan to demolish a 22-story condominium building to block the lava from flowing toward the hospital and the rest of the West Side, redirecting it into a nearby storm drain. As the lava arrives, Mike's co-worker Gator Harris and an LAPD Bomb Squad officer (trapped under debris) sacrifice their lives to detonate the final explosive charge. Mike then spots Kelly nearby, trying to retrieve a little boy she was watching who wandered off; the two are directly in the collapsing building's path. Mike barely manages to save them from being crushed. The plan succeeds, and the lava flows directly into the ocean. As it begins raining, the trio emerges from the rubble unscathed and reunites with Amy before heading home. At the tar pits, the volcano (which has since been named "Mount Wilshire") has taken shape above ground and remains active. ==Cast==

As themselves • Harvey Levin • Shepard Smith • Jeremy Thompson • Steve Edwards • Chris Myers • Charles Perez • Jane Velez-Mitchell • Dorothy Lucey • Jillian Barberie • Jane Wells • Warren Olney IV ==Production==

Filming Filming was primarily on location in Los Angeles, California. Filming sites include MacArthur Park, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and the La Brea Tar Pits. Music The score was originally composed and conducted by Alan Silvestri and performed by the Hollywood Studio Symphony. Recording artists James Newton Howard and Dillinger contributed songs to the music listing. The audio soundtrack on CD featuring 8 tracks was released by Varèse Sarabande on April 22, 1997. The sound effects were supervised by Christopher Boyes. The mixing of the sound elements were orchestrated by Jim Tanenbaum and Dennis Sands. ==Reception==

Among mainstream critics in the US, Volcano received mixed reviews. Rotten Tomatoes reports that 49% of 47 sampled critics gave the film a positive review, with an average score of 5.10/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Volcanos prodigious pyrotechnics and Tommy Lee Jones crotchety sneers at lava aren't quite enough to save this routine disaster film." At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average using critical reviews, the film received a score of 55 out of 100 based on 22 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews". In 1997, the film was nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Reckless Disregard for Human Life and Public Property, but lost to Con Air at the 18th Golden Raspberry Awards. Janet Maslin wrote in The New York Times, "Volcano begins so excitably and hurtles so quickly into fiery pandemonium" but "in the disaster realm, it's not easy to have it all. A film this technically clever can't get away with patronizing and familiar genre clichés." Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times called the film a "surprisingly cheesy disaster epic" while musing, "The lava keeps flowing for much of the movie, never looking convincing. I loved it when the firemen aimed their hoses way offscreen into the middle of the lava flow, instead of maybe aiming them at the leading edge of the lava—which they couldn't do, because the lava was a visual effect, and not really there." Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly said, "Volcano is cheese, all right, but it's tangy cheese. I'm not sure I've ever seen a disaster movie in which special effects this realistic and accomplished were put to the service of a premise this outlandish." Walter Addiego of the San Francisco Examiner opined that "Volcano offers a bit of humor, a minimum of plot distraction and the joys of watching molten rock ooze down Wilshire Boulevard." Equally impressed was James Berardinelli of ReelViews. He described Tommy Lee Jones' character Mike Roark as "a wonderfully heroic figure—a man of action who never has time to rest. The fate of the city rests on his shoulders, and he knows it." He added: "Volcano has opened the 'summer' movie season at an astoundingly early late-April date... This isn't the kind of film where it's worth waiting for the video tape—it's too big and brash, and demands the speakers and atmosphere of a state-of-the-art theater." Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times wrote that the film "glows with heat. Lava heat. The coast may be toast, but it's the lava, covering everything like a malevolent tide of melted butter, that makes this a disaster picture that's tastier than usual." For Time Out, TCh wrote, "The most striking aspect of this fun, old-fashioned disaster movie is the novelty of seeing the most familiar of backdrops used as a creative resource in its own right." For The Cincinnati Enquirer, Margaret McGurk wrote that the high-caliber special effects were "still fun, but all this lock-step storytelling is wearing thin", Marc Savlov of The Austin Chronicle called Volcano a "laughably ridiculous take on what we all secretly dream of: Los Angeles, washed away in a huge, molten tide of cheese—uh, lava, I mean." Rita Kempley of The Washington Post wondered why "there's no volcano in "Volcano"?...The hokey disaster drama features towering plumes of smoke, a splendid display of fireworks and brimstone, and rivers of molten magma, but I'll be darned if there's a burning mountain." Todd McCarthy of Variety wrote, "first-time screenwriters Jerome Armstrong and Billy Ray waste no time with exposition or scene-setting, starting the fireworks with a nerve-jangling morning earthquake that puts city workers on alert for possible damage." Box office Volcano premiered in cinemas on April 25, 1997. At its widest distribution in the United States, the film was screened at 2,777 theaters. The film grossed $14,581,740 in box office business in Canada and the United States on its opening weekend, averaging $5,256 in revenue per theater. During that first weekend in release, the film opened in first place beating out the films ''Romy & Michelle's High School Reunion and Anaconda''. The film's revenue dropped by 37% in its second week of release, earning $9,099,743. In the month of June during its final weekend showing in theaters, the film came out in 12th place grossing $602,076. The film went on to top out in the United States and Canada at $49,323,468 in total ticket sales through a 7-week theatrical run. In other markets, the film took in an additional $73,500,000 in box office business for an international total of $122,800,000. For 1997 as a whole, the film would cumulatively rank at a box office performance position of 39. Home media Following its cinematic release in theaters, the film was released in VHS video format on May 26, 1998. The Region 1 Code widescreen edition of the film was released on DVD in the United States on March 9, 1999. Special features for the DVD include interactive menus, scene selection and the original theatrical trailer. It is not enhanced for widescreen televisions, though the international DVD releases do. The film was released on Blu-ray Disc on October 1, 2013, by Starz/Anchor Bay. ==See also==