Dante's Peak

Dante's Peak (1997) is one of those movies that puts you at the edge of your seat from start to finish. The movie stars Pierce Brosnan and Linda Hamilton. Brosnan plays a volcanologist who is sent to a small town in Washington State. He soon discovers that the dormant volcano for which the town was named after is a ticking time bomb waiting to explode. He then tells the town's mayor (Hamilton) that Dante's Peak is in harm's way if the volcano erupts. It is only a matter of time before hell beaks loose in the Cascades. The visual effects are excellent and the acting is pretty good. This movie deserves ********* stars out of a perfect 10!!

They must have paid Pierce Brosnan a LOT of money to get him to star in this dreck. The storyline is a total cliché (scientist warns town about volcano, they don't listen, volcano erupts and kills some people, hero survives with his friends). The whole thing must be an outright embarrassment for everyone involved. "Plan 9 from Outer Space" was at least so bad that it was funny. "Dante's Peak" is only so bad that it makes your eyes roll, what with sappy relationships and vomit-inducing reminders of "the human spirit". HOW MANY DISASTER MOVIES CAN THEY POSSIBLY MAKE? One goal that all people will have to have in the near future will be avoiding this movie at all costs. There are plenty of B-movies that don't insult your intelligence, like "The Brain that Wouldn't Die".

Dante's Peak is a disaster thriller movie directed by Roger Donaldson and stars Pierce Brosnan, Linda Hamilton, Charles Hallahan, Jeremy Foley and Jamie Renee Smith in the leads. After seeing the movie I was surprised to such low rating of the movie on IMDb as the movie deserves much better rating. The plot of the movie is predictable but execution is good. The best part of the movie is that it doesn't wastes much time in plot development. Pierce Brosnan and Linda Hamilton both are seasoned actors and it shows in their performance. Rest of the actors were also good. The screenplay is good but the pace is uneven as either it gets fast or gets slow. Cinematography is good and specially the scenes of volcanic eruption is fascinating although some scenes looks dramatic. The movie is not that bad as rated by few and is an enjoyable experience.

Excellent, creative use of the 104M budget here. This is the supreme example of Mother Nature when She has totally gone awry. Beautifully written, realistically executed, and professionally presented, this movie could not have delivered more bang for the buck. Released this same year, was Volcano. It featured a better known, more dynamic cast; more eye candy; and just a tiny bit smaller budget. However, if you're looking for realism, action, and fast-paced well written story, Dante's Peak is the movie for you! Linda Hamilton and Pierce Brosnan deliver excellent top row performances here. The scenery is beautiful, the effects are stunningly believable, the direction was astounding, and the whole production is even better than the sum of its parts. Dante's Peak is far better than the sum of its wonderful parts; it is a riveting visual experience and a compellingly executed premise. It rates an 8.9/10 from... the Fiend :.

Saw this a video sale this week for a $1. Wifey was stoked as her favourite movie genre is "natural disasters". The movie revolves around volcano expert Harry (Brosnan), who decides to go and take a look at a volcano in a small US town where there seems to be some minimal activity. He is expecting this just to be a routine check, but once he starts taking some PH tests, things don't look so good. Then he finds some dead bodies in a hot spring and things look decidedly worse. He warns the town Mayor (Hamilton) the old volcano looks like she's gonna blow and she should look at evacuating the town ASAP. Just before this is about to happen, Harry's boss rocks into town, playing the time-old boss who doesn't take heed of the advice of someone smarter than him. Will the evacuation be too late? Will Harry and the Mayor get romantically involved? Will Harry again be tormented by a volcano? Will Nanna survive? Will the end be predictable? See it and find out.

I like this, not because I am a fan of Pierce Brosnan (GOD HE IS SOOOOOOOO CUTE!),or Linda Hamilton, but because it IS the better of the 2 volcano movies out at the time. ******SPOILER ALERT!!!!!****** The best part of the film is when Hamilton's 2 damn kids decided to drive up to their Grandmother's house (She lives up in the mountains), when the volcano erupts. Of course, Brosnan and Hamilton have to go up to rescue the kids. They encounter lava, ash and water that had turn into acid. The later becomes a problem when they have to cross a river in a metal boat. When the volcano finally goes and they are racing the cloud,it is awesome! Part of you is screaming RUN!!!! 8 OUT OF 10 STARS! I deducted 2 stars, because the kids just got on my ever loving nerves!

Great entertaining movie! Pretty much tells the tell of Mt St. Helens. Also refrence the mammoth lake debacle and the "frog soup recipe" from when mt pinatubo was going on. I saw this movie in the theatres when i was 13. Since then I have owned the VHS,DVD,Blu Ray versions on the movie. I watch it 2-3 Time's a year and it never gets old.

The first time I saw this movie I thought it quite good, especially the roller coaster ride of the last hour or so. I saw it again and thought it not very good at all and now having seen it recently, I not bad, but not great either. It's a well done disaster movie with one challenge after another to survive being thrown at the main characters. This roller coaster ride really pulled me in and even reminded me of the very well done remake of The Fugitive, starring Harrison Ford. I'll admit some of the situations are a little hard to believe, but at least they keep the film from being boring. The chemistry between Pierce Brosnan and Linda Hamilton, while not incredible, is still there. Also enjoyable was how the film makes use of its small town setting, including in the casting characters you'd expect to find in a small town: the female gossip, the gruff, but dedicated sheriff, and the more business-minded don't-rock-the-boat councilman. Finally, Harry (Brosnan) and Paul Dreyfus's band of colleagues also prevent the movie from being flat, but are a little too reminiscent of the characters from Twister to really leave their own mark. Also what impressed me was some of the camera work, which I think isn't given enough credit. There are a number of composite shots of the erupting volcano with the reflection (probably understood to be from a truck's window) of Rachel (Hamilton) looking back in horror that are quite well done. And the digital editing in of the volcano is also well done as well as some of the panoramas. A smaller problem I had with the movie is the development of Harry and Rachel's relationship. Initially their flirtations and the initial "getting to know each other" are quite cute. But I can't help but think why Rachel, who has been a small-town girl her whole life would be interested in someone like Harry who clearly states a that his job isn't exactly conducive to settling down. Sure Harry is everything her ex-husband isn't and it's obvious that the both of them are lonely to a degree, but it doesn't seem to me that a woman as sensible and who feels as great a responsibility as Rachel (to her kids, to the town, to her business) would find that to be enough. Also, Harry seems to get over the touchy subject of his dear departed Marianne to start making passes at Rachel in her kitchen quite quickly. My biggest problem with the movie is the writing, which is so bad in some places that it really brings down the parts in the movie where it is good. Harry's line about sex being like riding a bicycle because once you learn you never forget is laughable. Some of the Wando children's lines I found to be lacking in substance too and almost condescending to the viewer. But, as I said, not all the writing is bad: an example is the excellent delivery of a reference to Pompei by one of Harry and Paul's colleagues and another's excitement over Rachel's regular coffee deliveries. In the end, when this movie is bad, it's bad, but in general it's good.

Decided to view this picture only because Pierce Brosnan was starring in the film and greatly enjoyed his acting skills besides his appearing as James Bond. Pierce Brosnan,(Harry Dalton),"The Matador",'05, has a bad experience with the death of his wife during a volcano eruption and stayed in his profession as a geologist. Harry discovers from his charts that their could very well be another volcano problem effecting a small popular town. Linda Hamilton,(Rachel Wando),"The Kid & I ",'05 is the mayor and store owner of this town, who has a boy and a girl and is divorced. A romantic spark happens between Linda and Harry and the story develops into a monster of a tale. There is plenty of good action and it really keeps you on the edge of your seats. Pierce & Linda gave outstanding performances and the photography was great through out the entire picture. Very Entertaining

There is a formula for disaster movies and books. An insightful scientist sees The Bad Thing is going to happen, various foils keep him from warning people (often with sillier motivation than in this film), we get to know a bunch of average Joe characters who survive or do not survive the disaster. Earthquake movies, movies about made-up natural disasters that cannot happen, asteroid movies, even some nuclear holocaust films (like The Day After, unique in how many survive). It's a hackneyed formula, but it also works, and nothing else really does work as well for disaster plots. It was followed here. The special effects were terrific in the day, and they still hold up very very well in 2012. For a Hollywood film, the science was pretty good. I actually cringed back at the shots of Hawaii type basalt floes (just...no), and the ashfall cleared up nicely whenever they wanted a wide shot, which anyone in Yakima could tell you it really doesn't do, and the boat and drive-over-lava scenes were silly, and if you paddle a boat (through acid or not) with one hand, it's not going to go straight, and our heroes didn't need to cover their mouths in ashfall (meaning, IRL, the ash would turn to concrete in their lungs and they'd suffocate). However, all that having been complained about, much else was very accurate: what gets tested for by volcanologists, what monitoring stations of the day looked like, what some of the warning signs of a coming eruption might be. Most Hollywood film reviews by me on science-based movies are nothing but a list of what they did wrong, with no "however" of accurate bits to follow that list, so kudos for doing it more than half right. A pleasant diversion, very pretty to look at.