Volcano [Region 2] |  | Director: Mick Jackson
Actors: Tommy Lee Jones, Anne Heche, Gaby Hoffmann, Don Cheadle, Jacqueline Kim
Category: DVD
This item is no longer available
Rating:  94 reviews
Sales Rank: 261173
Format: Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), Portuguese (Subtitled), Swedish (Subtitled), Danish (Subtitled), Hungarian (Subtitled), Polish (Subtitled), Icelandic (Subtitled), Finnish (Subtitled), Czech (Subtitled)
Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Region: 2
Discs: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
DVD Layers: 2
DVD Sides: 1
Running Time: 104 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
EAN: 5039036001083
ASIN: B00004D0HB
Theatrical Release Date: April 25, 1997
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Amazon.com
Get mindless for awhile with this 1997 disaster flick, starring the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles as a funky place for lava to spew, plus Tommy Lee Jones and Anne Heche as the brave souls who know how to shut off the spout. Director Mick Jackson (The Bodyguard) wastes no time getting to the good stuff--it's happening even before opening credits are over--and neither should anyone in the mood for technical efficiency without the burden of art. --Tom Keogh
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| Customer Reviews: Read 89 more reviews...
 Run for your life!! Oh wait, the lava only moves 2mph............ July 1, 2009
Jolene Rogers (San Antonio, TX)
Downtown LA has a volcano under it and Tommy Lee Jones is here to stop the magma onslaught. That's right, even when you thought there weren't enough disaster movies involving a major city- here comes `Volcano' to help make you realize that Mother Nature is still in charge. I can't believe this movie has been out so long w/o me seeing it!! This movie has so many unbelievable parts I can't list them all but it did make for a very funny movie experience.
Let's try a few-with all the seismic coverage that California is blanketed with because of the San Andreas Fault you would think that someone would have had a heads up on a active volcano under the city (maybe, maybe not-actually!) Tommy doesn't know what lava is? Go figure. Anne Heche seems to be the only geologist in the city. There is a part where Heche is in the subway and places a thermometer into the dirt and it reads out to over 600 degrees as if she could have even gotten that close to TAKE the temp to begin with!! How about where we have humans that can't seem to outrun the 2mph moving lava? Tommy Lee jumps with his dumber than (lava) rock 13 year old 100+ pound daughter in his hands from the ground up onto the hood of a station wagon to escape the molten killer (pretty impressive for a man of 51yrs at that time). Jones and Heche see lava coming down the subway by hanging a camera down a manhole from the street, they lose the camera, pull back from the manhole and then Tommy sticks his face back over the manhole to see the lava and the 1200 degree temps don't burn his face off. The lava only seems to go where Jones's daughter will be in the city. Don Cheadle talks a lot on the phone and that's all. The `ash' looks like gray painted Styrofoam falling everywhere. A lady has a dog trapped in a house that has lava going through the front yard into the front of the house of it and guess what? The dog gets out the back door just in time then runs BACK through the front yard to its happy owner.
This is only a small sample.....be sure to watch it yourself for some good laughs. This would have been a better movie if the movie itself was not meant to be so serious!!!
 good customer service May 16, 2009
Mary Rojas (bigmama)
I was very happy to recieve, my movie as listed from this seller,and was also happy in the fast delivery.
Lava lurks in La La Land December 6, 2008
H. Bala (Carson - hey, we have an IKEA store! - CA USA)
Pity us poor Los Angelinos! Already suffering thru hellish traffic, mudslides, forest fires, earthquakes, looting, veggie burgers, actors, the L.A. Clippers. And, now, friggin' lava spewing out of the La Brea Tar Pits!! Thank the Googly Moogly that there's a geologist scientist on the alert (Anne Heche) and that the ever resourceful Tommy Lee Jones is around to ramrod L.A.'s Office of Emergency Management. Even if he's stuck babysitting his sullen teenaged daughter.
VOLCANO is a cheesy but fun disaster movie, elevated by its lighthearted, self-deprecating touches and its actors' performances. It's a flimsy premise - subterranean tremors cause lava to erupt to the surface and threatens to lay waste to that mecca of glitz and self-absorption - and it's far-fetched enough that it's hard to take things too seriously, even if several characters do die horribly (and, in some cases, heroically). As per usual to disaster flicks, the cast's various personal human drama plays out in the catastrophic backdrop.
Anne Heche and Don Cheadle are fine, but it's Tommy Lee Jones who centers the film, what with him again lending that aura of weathered, no-nonsense practicality. There's no one quite so reliable as Jones in embodying calm and resilience in the maelstrom. When Anne Heche grimly declares: "We are dealing with very determined stuff here." she was referring to the lava. But that statement applies to Jones's character as well. And, here, he's even a good dad.
The CG and props and miniature models give the film a good look, although, not having seen much lava in person, I can't attest to how convincing it appears on screen (but I bought into it). There's an undercurrent of tongue-in-cheek in the devastation brought down on L.A.'s landmarks (oh, the poor Wilshire Blvd. district). And, bless the hardworking firefighters, but, in retrospect, it's pretty ridiculous watching their efforts to cool down the lava with water hoses.
I said this film was cheesy, so try not to roll your eyes at the preachy moments, which may have been well-intentioned but end up sorta insulting and heavy-handed ("Look at the faces. They all look the same."). Enjoy this for what it is, which is an entertaining, lightweight disaster flick with all its predictable tropes, but with the added hook of portions of Los Angeles getting squashed. Relish Tommy Lee Jones's reliable performance and his chemistry with Don Cheadle, and even Anne Heche's moxie. As the film ends, with the camera panning to a startling shot of the spanking new Mount Wilshire (status: ACTIVE), the end credits proceed to roll out to, what else, Randy Newman's "I Love L.A." That's pretty perfect.
 The perfect volcano - Tar Pits, drain tunnel, in the ocean. October 25, 2008
Golden Lion (North Ogden, Ut United States)
. The movie starts with a emergency at St Vincent Hospital followed by an earthquake
2. "I hate that when that happens." Californians deal with disaster like it was common event, says the News anchor women reporter.
3. "Not to panic, please stay calm. Small to moderate earth quake in palmdale"
4. Mike is director of the Office of emergency management. It Mikes day off with his daughter.
5. Career heavy, Mike should be on vacation, divorced, and spending time with Kelley his only daughter.
6. Post earthquake, phone and power lines are up.
7. Speculation that a new fault system exists under Los Angels system.
8. Gas explosion in the MacArthur park, 7 deaths, thought initially to be an erupted steam pipe, but later reported as unknown.
9. Your not happy if you not declaring an emergency.
10. 30,000 people think they are taking the train tonight, says the Rail construction chief.
11. 5 feet of concrete walls in the storm drain, hot gases kill 7 public works individuals
12. Mike yells, "Find me a geologist"
13.Mojave desert 60 miles away, earthquake
14. Volcano lava flow starts in the tar pits
15. Mike declares the disaster level 1
16. Daughter, Kelly with 2nd degree burn
17. Dr J colter transports injured firemen rescued and Mikes daughter to the hospital.
18. The daugher screams "I promise I won't get in the way" as she is transported away.
19. Lava snaking its way down stanley avenue.
20. It is a warzone. Grey ash starts to fall.
21. Watch the Lava bombs and see where it will land.
22. The geologist wants to evaculate the westside, a million people, from lava stream that will extend too the ocean. Mike knows this is an impossible plan consider the speed of the lava flow.
23. Mike says "run to the hills and hide, I can't do that", a battle against the lava
24. The geolist tells Mike, the main eruption has not occurred
25. Public works to create concrete barrackads.
26. The Geologist says, "We are dealing with very determined stuff." Plan one, try to cool the lava and create a crust. It is a miracle. Hundreds of firefighter, water drops, and a concrete barrier manage to freeze the lava flow. They have accomplished the impossible.
27. There has to be a source, something feeding this. However, the lava is moving from the drain system, installed, and moving fast.
28. I want to be like Mike, red line subway, Holly Hill storm drain, onto the ocean, extend 200 yards, in 20 minutes. The contours are wrong, plan fails. The Hospital and its 2,000 occupants are at risk.
29. New plan, knock a new 20 story building (accross from the Beverly center) down by precision explosion and create a rubble dam, in 20 minutes, and divert the lava to the ocean.
30. The desparate strategy paid off. The lava diverted the ocean.Mike, Kelly, and the little boy are Ok. The volcano is shutting down. Look at their faces they all look the same
Is there a forewoman somewhere? August 10, 2008
Jacques COULARDEAU (OLLIERGUES France)
A catastrophe film has a simple formula. A perfectly beautiful situation. Los Angeles. With a hint of a problem. Earthquakes. Then some small elements that could lead to something else and a few geologists to prove it with theories that prove nothing but create anxiety. The geologists are women and that adds a touch of male-chauvinism when all the men (and they are only men, firemen, policemen, all kind of city workers and underground operators and security people, men, men and men again, and if you can find women they are geologists, doctors, nurses, news journalists, but not security personnel, though there might be one or two on the fringes but not in the middle of the action) of the security services don't believe her. Add to that a few simple but strongly emotional personal situations like a "single" father and his 13 year old daughter caught in the mess, and a couple more elements like that, even a couple of dogs, and you have what you need to create an emotional and fascinating catastrophe film. The rest is just special effects and there no one is better than catastrophe film makers to get these special effects right. So the catastrophe that has one chance in a million years to happen can be imagined in Los Angeles, but not too hard though like the volcanic eruptions that created Japan or those that submerged northern India with an immense basaltic plateau a couple of miles thick. Just a small little thing but right in the middle of LA with the underground as one of the main in-going avenues, along with Wilshire boulevard or whatever, for the lava to seize the city from underground. Spectacular. The heroes are set in extremely dangerous situations and miraculously saved by fate. The film you need in order to imagine the end of the world on a largo pianissimo level of intensity. We keep the vivace prestissimo for when it will really happen.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines
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