director : mick jackson writers : jerome armstrong and billy ray starring : tommy lee jones , anne heche , don cheadle , gaby hoffman , keith david there's a scene somewhere in this film where one of the characters reads the book " screenwriting made easy . " this is funny the first time just 'cause it is , but funnier as the film goes on since it's totally ironic since the screenwriters of this inane film probably read it , outlined it and then wrote this film . it's like they took the sub-genre of the disaster pic , which can be fun and hokey at the same time , and then forgot one of the greatest parts of them : the stupid , eccentric characters . yes , " the poseidon adventure " is crap , but it's fun 'cause of all the stupid , eccentric characters . and " earthquake , " my god ! " earthquake " has got to be one of the worst movies of all time , but at least they had the joke of having charlton heston sleeping with genevieve bujold . " volcano " takes a semi-intriguing yet stupendously inane plot ( a volcano no one knew about suddenly errupts one fine morning and then erupts again later then stops . . . only it's in , dare i say it ? l . a ! ! ! ) and then puts no stupid , stereotypical , eccentric characters in it . they're just stupid . and the actors are all good ones . tommy lee jones is great , an oscar winner , and a member of the men in black ( my vote for what should be the coolest movie of the summer ) . anne heche is a good indy actress . don cheadle stole the disappointing " devil in a blue dress " from denzel's feet . and gaby's one of the few good teenage actors . but they get nothing to do but act dumb and scream at what's going on . they do their best , god bless them , but they're all lost in the fake magma ( only don cheadle gets an interesting part and he's the greatest part of the film ) . there's no real suspense here 'cause you don't care about anyone . i actually was rooting for gaby's character to get killed so tommy lee jones wouldn't have to keep saving her ( he did it like thirty times ! ) . and there are no interesting sites in l . a . that we see get destroyed . part of the fun of disaster films is watching sites get toppled or destroyed or whatever . in " independence day , " the best part ( other than judd hirsch ) was watching the white house and empire state building get blown up by the aliens . that was cool . watching really fake-looking magma plow down the street is not . okay , so the film's not devoid of merit . as i already stated , don cheadle was great and the cast does their best . and there's this really moronic scene which looks cool . john carrol lynch ( norm from " fargo " ) goes on a subway car to save people but the lava comes and surrounds it . he has one guy who's wounded and could make it . he could throw the guy and jump and still survive . but no ! ! ! he has to go and inanely jump and land right in the middle of the lava . here's the cool sight : he melts . here's the dumb part of it : he somehow manages to throw the man to safety as his legs are melting . cool sight . no logic . but cool sight . the volcano erupts twice and for some reason , the film ends there . they aren't worried about it eruting again , they just go home to their toppled homes . but to tell the truth , i was glad they didn't go on . i was hoping the film was over after the first eruption ended . my god , it was actually painful to sit through this little 102 minute long film . i haven't seen " dante's peak " but i've heard it's a masterpiece compared to this . if you want to see a cool disaster flick that's inane but interesting , rent " the towering inferno " with steve mcqueen , paul newman , and the schweppervescent o . j . simpson ( he saves a cat ) . if you want to waste your time watching a boring , stupid disaster flick ( literally , it almost grossed half of its budget ) , see this . but i warned you . 
