The author of this review have spent some time travelling and during those travels noticed that the places with prettiest scenery usually happened to be places that were, for one reason or another, unsuited for permanent human habitation. In other words, reality isn't pretty, so Hollywood at times can be forgiven for taking creative approach to some facts of life in order to make its escapist entertainment more effective. Arguments for this could be found in Dante's Peak, 1997 disaster film directed by Roger Donaldson. This big budget volcano-themed extravaganza was being made in parallel with another studio's project Volcano. In the end, Dante's Peak lost that particular contest at the box-office, partly slightly due to being more faithful to real life.
Unlike Volcano, which had unleashed highly implausible disaster on the streets of Los Angeles, this film has the plot set around Dante's Peak, small town in mountains of Washington. The town has pretty scenery, which also happens to include seemingly dormant volcanic peak. But some signs indicate that the volcano might erupt, so US Geological Survey sends its experienced expert Harry Dalton (played by Pierce Brosnan) to investigate. Dalton begins fearing the worst and expresses those fears to town's mayor and single mother Rachel Wando (played by Linda Hamilton). Both want to organise evacuation, but business community and Dr. Paul Dreyfus (played by Charles Hallahan), Dalton's sceptical boss, are against it and block such action until it is too late. When the eruption finally occurs, Dalton must deal with earthquakes, mountains of ash, rivers of lava, floods, poison gases and acid lakes in order to bring Rachel, her children, grandmother and dog to safety.
Geology buffs are probably going to be more satisfied with Dante's Peak than with Volcano; while the latter used volcanic phenomenon only as an excuse for the visually impressive destruction of the world's most filmed megalopolis, the former has volcano realistically set far from major population centres and features some fascinating real-life details of volcanic behaviour. The only problem is in Leslie Bohem's script that fails to weave those details into anything resembling plausible and entertaining script; volcano in Dante's Peak doesn't behave like the real volcano would – scientific plausibility in the end gets sacrificed for the sake of cheap thrills and melodramatic cliches which not only become more apparent, but also more annoying as the film approaches its finale. Part of the reason for that may be found in dispirited acting by Pierce Brosnan and Linda Hamilton, who fail to stir any interests for their characters. The only thing where Dante's Peak truly excels is in the area of special effects – scenes of town's devastation are impressive, but not impressive enough to allow this film to last in viewers' memories.
RATING: 3/10 (+)
(Note: The text in its original form was posted in Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.films.reviews on December 22nd 2003)
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