Dante’s Peak (1997)

Directed by: Roger Donaldson | 108 minutes | action, adventure | Actors: Pierce Brosnan, Linda Hamilton, Jamie Renée Smith, Jeremy Foley, Elizabeth Hoffman, Charles Hallahan, Grant Heslov, Kirk Trutner, Arabella Field, Tzi Ma, Brian Reddy, Lee Garlington, Bill Bolender, Carole Androsky, Peter Jason, Jeffrey L Ward, Tim Haldeman

In the 90s, disaster movies make their big comeback. Thanks to the rapidly developing technology, there are suddenly no limits to the imagination of directors. All the special effects violence is increasingly at the expense of the content, is an increasingly louder-sounding criticism. One such film is ‘Dante’s Peak’ (1997), a relatively modest film about a volcanic eruption in a small American town.

Pierce ‘007’ Brosnan plays volcanologist Harry Dalton, who is sent to the fictional site of Dante’s Peak following suspicious seismic activity around the local volcano. What follows is predictable: Dalton learns that something is indeed wrong, but is opposed by skeptical colleagues and a local government that fears the companies will leave if unrest arises. Only Mayor Rachel Wando, played by Linda Hamilton, seems to take him seriously – but that may also be because the two are beginning to feel something for each other. It’s a well-known genre convention: Dalton is the lone warrior who is of course right. Fortunately, the charismatic Brosnan takes this to the next level, with sympathetic counterplay from Hamilton. It is a pity that ‘Dante’s Peak’ cannot do without clichés such as children and pets in need.

What we naturally encounter in a disaster film is the disaster itself. It has a long run-up with many disturbing events such as boiling water pools and sulfur in the sewer. When the volcano finally erupts, director Roger Donaldson takes it very seriously. This isn’t a flat ‘look-how-beautifully-made’ Hollywood spectacle, but a genuinely terrifying natural disaster that plunges the peaceful town into chaos and darkness. Debris rains from the sky, lava flows burn everything in their path and a scorching hot cloud of dust sweeps through the city. In between the devastation, there is also a downright eerie moment when a boat runs aground in a lake of corrosive acid. While it’s not all scientifically correct, the film does its best to make the eruption seem as real as possible—a stark contrast to the same year’s “Volcano,” which crashes into a volcano in the middle of downtown Los Angeles. A dramatic musical score by James Newton Howard (“Titanic”) and John Frizzel (“Thirteen Ghosts”), stark camera work by Andrzej Bartkowaik (“The Devil’s Advocate”) and a good mix of digital and physical trickery bring disaster in all its majestic horror to life.

With Donaldson’s serious directing, the sympathetic Brosnan and Hamilton, and the exquisitely portrayed eruption, ‘Dante’s Peak’ is one of the better wave disaster movies of the 1990s.