'Dante's Peak': Escapism from and into disaster

By Laksmi Pamuntjak-Djohan

JAKARTA (JP): Bridges collapse. Dams burst. Cars crash. Houses topple. Churches burn. Lakes turn into acid. Shock waves flatten forests. Lava flows. Lahar surges downhill. A blizzard of ash obliterates the sun. Bodies charbroiled in hot springs. Floods. Fires. Pyroclastic clouds rush right out at you.

If you are the hard-core blockbuster type, fear not. Evidently predicated on the prevalent myth that bigger is better, Universal's Dante's Peak spares you none of the special effects known to mankind. Some of its computer-generated Sturm und Drang are indeed original, simply because it is the first of the two volcano-themed disaster flicks (the other is Fox's Volcano) offered by Hollywood this year.

Last year, Twister's flying cows brought in the big bucks at the box office. The next logical step, it seems, was to go for something larger. Since hurricanes were deemed too mild and earthquakes have been done to death, gigantic volcanic eruptions easily won the vote. Enter proven director and screenwriter of contemporary action Roger Donaldson (Species, No Way Out) and Leslie Bohem (Daylight).

As if such measures show enough cinematic goodwill, the movie's creators obviously can't be bothered to invent an original story line. While Twister is not exactly a masterpiece of originality either, the similarities are astonishing.

We get the same obligatory romantic pair thrown into danger with a minimalist back-story about why this particular act of nature is so traumatic to the scientist hero, whose hunches seem surer than any scientific measurement (Helen Hunt in Twister, Brosnan in Dante's Peak).

We have a political voice in a requisite doubting Thomas role. We have a team of gosh-darn-nutty scientists, all equipped with little character quirks (one is obsessed with coffee - how cute) to provide comic relief. We have an idyllic setting full of small-town kitsch (Twister in the midwest, Peak in a sleepy Northwestern village). We have an injured grandma character and a dog, adding to all the gripping human drama. We even have a big red truck that doesn't make it during the ensuing commotion!

Worse, we have the couple trudge dutifully through some tedious 75 minutes of exposition as though any unnecessary acting might exhaust them before the big bang finish. Granted, this wouldn't be a Hollywood fare if all hell didn't break loose, but since we know what's coming, where's the suspense? Waiting for the inevitable eruption is like waiting for a punch line that never comes. While director Roger Donaldson's reluctance to give in entirely to today's McAudience is a welcome change from the usual wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am pacing, the subplots are weak and the characters don't need that much time to get to know because they are stereotypes anyway.

The film opens in Colombia, where U.S. Geological Survey volcanologist Harry Dalton (Pierce Brosnan) suffers a tragic loss during a volcanic eruption. Four years later, Harry is sent to Dante's Peak -- voted second-most-desirable place to live among cities under 20,000 by Money Magazine -- to investigate rumblings in the town's long-dormant namesake volcano.

When ominous portents of doom on a seemingly ordinary day convince him of a threat, he immediately suggests an evacuation plan to mini-skirted mayor Rachel Wando (Linda Hamilton). However, Harry's boss, Paul Dreyfus (Charles Hallahan) is unwilling to cause unwarranted alarm, especially as local go- getters and politicos consider evacuation as a public relations disaster. When Dante's Peak finally blows, Harry helps Rachel and her family escape. That includes Rachel's mother-in-law, Ruth (Elizabeth Hoffman) who stubbornly refuses to budge from her mountainside hut. And Ruffy the dog, of course.

Dante's Peak follows the disaster formula so faithfully that when the volcano really sings (and boy, does it sing), the film has long passed the point of resuscitation. And, instead of saving the film, the pyrotechnics further add to the abounding shortcomings with a bountiful amount of implausibility.

Consider these: Harry is forced to use his hand wrapped in a shirt to row across a lake of acid. He remains unscathed while granny -- who decides to jump into the lake 10 seconds before they reach land -- unceremoniously expires. Rachel's under-aged kids drive a car by themselves up a winding mountain road through ash so thick that they cannot see anything at all and actually make it to their granny's hut.

Superdog

Harry drives his car through a bed of lava and wonders why the tires catch fire. What he should be wondering instead is why the gas tank does not explode. A utility vehicle successfully fords a river with its engine completely submerged in water. And, although the Heroic Canine Leap to Safety made famous by Independence Day is a cute, campy spectacle, they never tell us that Ruffy is a superdog capable of defeating nature at its cruelest.

Then there is the ragged band of bohemian nerds exchanging yackety-yack techno-banter designed to make people working in suits feel they don't have a life. Screenwriter Leslie Bohem, who was responsible for the "humanity" (i.e. the inane dialogue) in Daylight, obviously has a weird idea of fun. In what other job do you get to stand on dry land and watch with seemingly casual interest when your boss doesn't make it pass the suspension bridge and gets killed in front of your very eyes? "He didn't make it," one of them later reports to Harry, "but at least he got to see the show."

Although he has put on some weight since Golden Eye, Brosnan is still impossibly handsome, sleek and reserved. But he looks too much a seasoned special agent than a scientist facing extreme provocation. Linda Hamilton, of The Terminator fame, is a whiff of fresh air in an atypical feminine role, although her performance is equally too controlled for a damsel in distress.

This US$100 million-budget movie is escapism all right, albeit of a rare kind. It is escapism from and into disaster, if you like.