Quartile rating: 6/10 · 1 rating
An earthquake shatters a peaceful Los Angeles morning and opens a fissure deep into the earth, causing lava to start bubbling up. As a volcano begins forming in the La Brea Tar Pits, the director of the city's emergency management service, working with a geologist, must then use every resource in the city to try and stop the volcano from consuming LA.
Volcano is a mid-tier 90s disaster film that leans heavily on genre conventions. The plot is formulaic — a city-threatening disaster, a reluctant hero, and a race against time — with thin character development and some groan-worthy dialogue. Acting from Tommy Lee Jones is serviceable but he's largely going through the motions, while the supporting cast is underdeveloped. Cinematography and practical effects are a highlight for the era, with impressive lava flow sequences through downtown LA streets offering some genuine spectacle. Novelty is low: the film arrived in the same year as the near-identical 'Dante's Peak,' and both recycled well-worn disaster movie tropes. The ending is abrupt and unsatisfying, resolving the crisis with a convenient engineered solution that feels unearned.