Dante's Peak (1997)
Directed by Roger Donaldson
Volcanologist Harry Dalton comes to the sleepy town of Dante's Peak to investigate the recent rumblings of the dormant volcano the burg is named for. Before long, his worst fears are realized when a massive eruption hits, and immediately, Harry, the mayor and the townspeople find themselves fighting for their lives amid a catastrophic nightmare.
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"Dante's Peak" is the first of an onslaught of disaster revival movies attempting to cash in on the "Twister" crowd using the same vauge story outline.
It's almost impossible not to compare Dante's Peak with Twister.
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).
As an exercise in disaster-movie logistics, this is on a par with Twister, although the jaw-dropping SFX are far more varied and genuinely terrifying.
(Feb. 6, 1997) -- Toss in a bit of Jaws, a touch of Twister and a dollop of Earthquake.
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.
Jurassic Park trotted out the dinosaurs, Twister put us in the middle of a tornado, and now Dante's Peak dips us in lava.
Not since "Jurassic Park" has a movie so stunningly created, through the use of special effects, such a realistic and terrifying disaster as that of "Dante's Peak," a film about a seemingly idyllic town in the Cascades that's suddenly transformed into a fiery death pit when a long-dormant volcano springs to life.
Roger Donaldson ("Species") is a good director who pays attention to the human elements even in a fiction machine like "Dante's Peak,'' and Gale Anne Hurd , the producer, is a specialist in action films (" Aliens ," " Alien Nation ," "The Abyss," "Tremors," " Terminator 2: Judgment Day ").