Dante's Peak Movie Review

Dante's Peak (1997)

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Written by: Leslie Bohem
Directed by: Roger Donaldson
Starring: Pierce Brosnan, Linda Hamilton, Charles Hallahan, Jamie Renée Smith
Rated: PG-13
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Plot
A volcanologist arrives at a countryside town recently named the second-most desirable place to live in America and discovers that a nearby long-dormant volcano may awaken at any moment.

Verdict
It's just a bit too cheesy and predictable, encompassing all the tropes and a ton of foreshadowing. This checks all the boxes for a disaster movie, and it relies on such an inane sequence of events. Physics bends to fit the plot of this movie. There's very little depth or substance to this which makes it ultimately forgettable as the characters never seem to be in real danger.
Skip it.

Review
The first five minutes is a wild escape with no context as a town crumbles. Years ago Harry Dalton (Pierce Brosnan) attempted to escape another volcano. He made it, but he was one of the few. As you can guess, his unresolved trauma will fuel his mission at Dante's Peak.

He's drawn to the location due to interesting geological activity. Of course this town was just voted as a great place to live. There's a lot of foreshadowing when the audience knows what's going to happen. It's nothing we haven't seen before and the extent of it borders on silly. They might as well have a character state this is the best town ever and they hope an ecological disaster never happens.

Linda Hamilton, Pierce Brosnan play Rachel, Harry Dalton

Dalton wants to warn everyone and put them on alert. He was slow to act years ago, and he doesn't want to make that mistake again. His bosses warn him not to be too hasty. They don't want to create a panic. You could telegraph what this movie is setting up even if you were asleep. This dormant volcano presents an imminent danger. While the audience isn't surprised, the townspeople sure are. How ironic that the volcano blows during the public safety meeting, sending everyone into a frenzy.

Pierce Brosnan, Linda Hamilton play Harry Dalton, Rachel

With one earthquake this town is falling apart. Were these buildings constructed out of cardboard? Everything is falling down. The movie quickly resorts to blowing stuff up without much reason. Dalton must team with the town's mayor Rachel (Linda Hamilton) to save her children, and that quickly devolves to Dalton and crew in a boat on a lake where the water has become acid. I'm not sure why. Dalton wraps his hand in his shirt to paddle across after the motor melts. If the acid is burning through the metal boat, I'm pretty sure it would burn through his shirt and hand.

The enemy in this movie is a volcano. It's man versus nature where everything goes wrong. The problem is that few problems are believable. How does lava set truck tires on fire but not burn them up? Of course this has to shoehorn in saving a dog. By the time this gets to the end, I had lost interest. If Dalton and the family can stumble through the movie to that point, I was sure they'd survive one way or another.