USA 1997
Director: Mick Jackson Actors: Tommy Lee Jones
There is a earthquake in Los Angeles. Since this is nothing unusual for this city, the people remain relatively calm. Only when seven city workers mysteriously die at a sewer inspection, Mike Rock (Tommy Lee Jones), the head of civil protection, is seriously worried. While the seismologist from LA sees the risk of a volcanic eruption from the very beginning, other authorities (underground management, police...) play down the danger. But it does come as it has to: In the middle of Los Angeles a volcano erupts and threatens to destroy the whole city. A desperate, huge rescue operation begins....
A film to my liking: Mighty fires, a huge, all-destroying river of lava, heroic rescue measures. Disaster movie fan, what more do you want? Perhaps a framework story that may not seem unbelievable in some places (but it is by far not as bad as some people claim). Or the omission of the "exaggeration of the end", which has apparently already become obligatory. (All in all, the film is much more "realistic" than Dante's Peak, for example. Since the catastrophe and its fight were very well set in scenes, these are only "trifles". The film remains really exciting until the end, although we know that the volcano will be defeated.
In short, a film that can build on the tradition of catastrophe films of the 1970s. With the eighth star, however, he benefits slightly from the "disaster film bonus". A very good movie, the best catastrophe movie in a long time!
A movie review by Jörn
