Dante's Peak

Director Roger Donaldson's volcano epic opens thus: vulcanologist Harry (Pierce Brosnan) driving away from a spewing volcano loses his girlfriend when a large, and very hot lava rock crashes through the pick-up truck. Flash forward four years to a routine check of a little seismic activity in the "second most livable town in the U.S.," Dante's Peak (very clever name, eh?). Now, there's not a manjack (or womanjack) among you who doesn't know the rest of this story, lyric and verse. When Brosnan says: "This town's in trouble. I'm the best man you've got," I have expected him to next ask for a martini shaken-not-stirred, but no, that would have meant we were in for a much better movie. In utterly predictable fashion, Brosnan's warnings are ignored by the townspeople and his geological colleagues, but he does gain the ear and the sympathy of the town mayor (Linda Hamilton) who happens to be a single mother of two kids with a cantankerous mother-in-law who won't come off the mountain. I won't go on...even my word processor is starting to feel insulted. The second-half special effects are not worth the totally workmanlike first half. Not recommended. (R. Pitman)