![[box cover]](../reviewimgs/v/volcano.jpg)
Volcano
Volcano, Fox's entry into 1998's disaster-movie marathon, is nothing to e-mail your friends about, but it isn't all bad either, and far less annoying than its summer-blockbuster competitor Godzilla. Tommy Lee Jones stars as Mike Roark, the head of the Los Angeles Office of Emergency Management, who locks horns with transportation bean-counters when he thinks some recent tremors warrant shutting down a section of the subway. Roark enlists the help of seismologist Amy Barnes (Anne Heche), who determines that the City of Angels isn't merely dealing with another series of earthquakes, but in fact is about to give birth to a short, nasty, brutish volcano. It's a fun premise, but when this bad boy eventually starts spewing lava along L.A. streets, director Mick Jackson and scenarist Jerome Armstrong begin to spew all of the flag-waving, sentiment-slinging tripe that we've endured in virtually every disaster movie yet made. Fortunately, Volcano is mercifully brief (a mere 100 minutes), and Jones and Heche don't embarrass themselves too badly. In all, this is a film best suited for a quiet Sunday afternoon, when you're feeling sleepy and have nothing to do. Also starring Don Cheadle and Gaby Hoffmann. Good transfer, DD 5.1 or 2.0, trailer, textual supplements.
