Back To www.currentfilm.com

Volcano
20th Century Fox
1.85:1(NON ANAMORPHIC)/Dolby Digital 5.1/2.0
107 Minutes
Rated:PG-13
Region:1
English/Spanish Subtitles
Dual Layer:YES
Reviewed on a Panasonic A110

The Film:
The "other" Volcano movie and certainly far different from its competitor, Dante's Peak. This really isn't a very good film, but what saves it from being completely awful is the fact that it absolutely doesn't take itself very seriously. Tommy Lee Jones stars as a city officer thrust into a bad situation when a Volcano decides to errupt in the middle of downtown Los Angeles. Anne Heche stars as the geologist who joins him in finding a way to stop the lava from overtaking Los Angeles.

There are some impressive scenes when the film finally gets going, but it's constantly thrown off track by silly, inane exchanges of dialogue between the characters. As poor as the dialogue is, the characters aren't much better; none of them, even Tommy Lee Jones as the main character, is fully written. Some decent special effects, but overall, "Volcano" just doesn't work due to its silly, simple script, but it even seems to make fun of that fact. We see one of the non-speaking characters reading "Screenplays made easy."

IMAGE: Outstanding. Fox has placed the 1.85:1 transfer on a dual layer disc and it looks simply phenomenal. The only very small problem is that images look slightly soft here and there, but for the most part, images are absolutely crisp and frequently, even during some of the lower-light scenes, look simply stunning. Contrast as well as color saturation are 100% perfect; the oranges of the lava and fire look phenomenal in the night scenes, simply vibrant and beautiful. There are absolutely no problems at all with this disc; no grain, no aliasing, no problems at all. Attention to detail as well as depth-of-field is quite excellent. Images look of the same quality as the image I saw in theaters. The darker scenes are impressively well defined; black level in the image is extremely strong and definitive.Colors and skin tones are natural and well rendered and there is absolutely no bleeding in the colors. The colors are consistently amazing, the image is very clear and no problems at all add up to a wonderfully entertaining presentation. It's incredible how 20th Century Fox is so inconsistent, delivering a great image here and then fails with their "Die Hard 3" disc. The layer change is at about 48 minutes and 20 seconds and it's placed fairly well.

Audio: Fantastic. This is a constantly enveloping sound mix, containing wonderfully sharp action and detailed effects. I was a manager in a local movie theater at the time this film came out and the staff agreed that this was one of the great sound mixes of the year. There is wonderfully solid and forceful bass throughout. Dialogue quality is outstanding, easily able to be heard among all of the explosions and chaos. Alan Silvestri's score comes through loud and clear. This is an incredibly agressive sound mix that is quite, quite entertaining.

Extras: The trailer and slight cast biographies.

Menus: Wild, well done animation in the main menu and when you make a selection, but no animation in the scene selection.

Overall: It's not a great film, but it's certainly a very, very well done DVD. Definitely at least a rental and if you enjoyed the film, you might want to consider a purchase. I wish Fox would include extras, but the quality of this presentation is just so strong it's worth a look.

GRADES:
The Film:C
Video Quality:A
Sound Quality:A
Extras:D
Menus:A-
Overall:A-