DIRECTOR
Roger Donaldson
SCREENWRITER
Leslie
Bohem
PRODUCERS
Gale Anne Hurd
Joseph M. Singer
CINEMATOGRAPHER
Andrzej Bartkowiak
MUSIC
John Frizzell
James Newton Howard
EDITORS
Conrad Buff
Tina Hirsch
Howard Smith
CAST
Pierce Brosnan (Harry Dalton)
Linda Hamilton (Rachel Wando)
Jamie Renée Smith (Lauren Wando)
Jeremy Foley (Graham Wando)
Elizabeth Hoffman (Ruth)
Charles Hallahan (Paul Dreyfus)
Grant Heslov (Greg)
MPAA rating: PG-13
Running
time: 112m
U.S. release: February 7, 1997
Video availability: VHS - DVD
|
Dante's
Peak is great fun,
but for all the wrong reasons. Here is a movie that cries out
for the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment, with the
guy and the two robots sitting in the corner of the frame and
keeping up a steady stream of sarcasm. The best part is that
Universal spent $115 million on what they're marketing as a scary
disaster movie. Afraid not. Once it gets going (and it takes
a good hour), Dante's Peak has more belly-laughs per minute
than The Nutty Professor.
The movie begins seriously enough. Intrepid geologist Harry Dalton
(Pierce Brosnan) and his sweetheart are driving away from an
erupting volcano. A smoldering chunk of rock slices through the
cab roof -- thwack! -- and the girlfriend will never need
a hat again. Cut to four years later. Harry is now a workaholic
trying to forget his grief; you can tell because he spends his
spare time doing really intense push-ups.
Harry is summoned to investigate a possibly cranky volcano near
the thriving town Dante's Peak, which is declared "the second
best place to live in America." (Why not first-best? Oh,
I don't know -- maybe the dormant-volcano thing.) The mayor (Linda
Hamilton), a divorcee who seems to have adopted the kids from
Jurassic
Park, makes goo-goo eyes at Harry while he's trying to
explain that Dante's Peak may soon become the second best place
to find crispy corpses in America.
Volcanology must be tedious work -- all that waiting around for
the thing to blow -- and I admire the integrity of director Roger
Donaldson and writer Leslie Bohem, who keep Dante's Peak
defiantly boring for at least an hour. Just when we're starting
to feel like geologists watching rocks erode, the thing finally
blows. Boy, does it blow. The volcanic effects, particularly
a highway crumbling and cars falling like loose change, do manage
to be fairly frightening. But then the movie accidentally takes
a sharp detour into comedy, never to return.
Up to this point, Dante's Peak has been a pale Xerox of
Jaws (the town officials don't want to scare away tourists
and investors) and Twister
(Harry has a team of volcano-chasers). But this movie, rather
bravely I thought, declines to offer a plot motor like "Kill
the shark" or "Get the balls into the tornado."
What we get instead is ... Grandma and Ruffy the dog. I'll try
to explain. The little kids' stubborn grandmother (Hamilton's
"ex-mother-in-law") refuses to believe that the volcano
is dangerous. Even when volcanic ash blackens the sky, she won't
leave her mountainside cabin. So our heroes go through Dante's
inferno to rescue this moron and her dog.
I won't reveal much more; I don't want to give away all the jokes.
But the scene set in a boat in an acid lake is a comic masterpiece,
ending in the funniest unintentional sight gag (involving poor
Grandma, who apparently refuses to believe that acid is
dangerous) I've seen in years. Not to mention Harry's heartfelt,
hilarious promise to take the kids deep-sea fishing when all
this is over. Dante's Peak is truly a special movie. I
can't recommend it, but it has my undying affection. |
