1997 - VOLCANO, the disaster movie lives on in the 1990's

Just when the world thought the disaster movie cycle ended in the 1970's not one but two volcano movies came roaring into the theaters during the 1990's and they were just 7 months apart.  For my money I think Volcano is the more entertaining of the two movies for the chief reason that it has Tommy Lee Jones as the main lead in the film. 

Tommy Lee Jones is the head of the Office of Emergency Management  for Los Angeles, he runs around town barking orders at his loyal assistant played by Don Cheadle who is back at the office monitoring stuff.  Jones is in fine form in this film, he comes off as his usual grouchy self acting like a volcano erupting in downtown Los Angeles is just one more thing he has to put up with that day.  Jones is assisted by Anne Hecht improbably cast as a seismologist who is mostly in the film to provide Jones with facts about about this ridiculous situation.  Jones also has a teenage daughter whose chief role in the film is to get herself in jeopardy so he can rescue her along with the citizens of Los Angeles.

 

Volcano is entertaining in a crowd pleasing action movie kind of way.  If the film gets off track it's when it tries to make a comment on racial harmony which hardly seems like a good time considering Wilshire Blvd is about to be reduced to ashes.  

 

I suspect a lot of the enjoyment of this film is due to watching the city of Los Angeles being burned to a crisp.  Anyway the film was written by Jerome Armstrong and Billy Ray, the running time is 104 minutes.