My Review of "Dante's Peak"

Dante's Peak came out back in 1997. It was a time when disaster movie's were the big thing because the year before Twister was a huge hit. Pierce Brosnan and Linda Hamilton were probably at the height of their careers. This movie should have been a slam dunk. That's probably why I wanted to see it back in the day. I also like disaster movies for some reason.

This movie is most definitely a product of its time. The dialogue and the direction of how the shots were done screams late 90's action. I'm not complaining because it's very much a blast from the past when things were a lot more innocent and unassuming.

This movie starts off with the main character Harry. He's a volcano scientist just like twister, he goes off running towards volcanoes to study them. Him and his partner there is a wild eruption and they attempt a daring escape. Unfortunately his partner was a casualty to the tremendously volatile eruption. You have to see Harry's reaction to her death. It's straight up 90's and it's really cheesy. I loved it.

A little later he's asked to go to a small town called Dante's Peak. Apparently there's some small activity there and he's the best guy to check it out. I don't know about you but I would have suffered PTSD from that last volcano escape that Harry survived. It was nuts. This is the 90's though everyone's a superhero.

He goes to the small town and meets with the mayor Rachel. The two are instantly enamored by one another. Haha I love the 90's, this is the only time these kinds of stories would happen. He has a feeling that the volcano will erupt and everyone from the town should evacuate. This makes some of the town's citizens to doubt him and panic because there's a company that had recently poured millions into the town for added jobs for their small community.

I was actually surprised that they placed this story-line in this movie. I thought it was well thought out because even today with the global pandemic people are thinking the same thing. There is a small section of the movie where they talk about how they can't evacuate the town because of politics and businesses which is very relatable even today.

Back in the 90's I would have been really pissed off at all of the idiots of the town that don't want to evacuate because they don't believe it's a threat. After the global pandemic of 2020 I can actually see how many of the obstacles they face in the movie could actually happen in real life. The writers did a good job in adding those little details that I would never have thought would happen in real life.

You have your usual unnecessary rescue missions and saving of pets. There's always pets that need to be saved in these movies. Just to add a little extra for the pet owners. I could kind of tell that this movie probably went through a bunch of screen testers to see how the movie should proceed.

A ton of the movie is super safe and predictable. I never really had a feeling that anyone was really in danger. It's pretty obvious who's going to die and why. There is one death that I didn't see coming but I understand their rational for doing it.

Still I had a good time watching it. It wasn't really a nostalgic watch but the way the movie was filmed was very old school. Today you can see how all of the shots were done. One of the things that sucks about living in 2020 is that you know how they made shots in the past. Some of the magic of special effects are ruined by the internet. I think some things are better not known because you lose the mystery of how special effects are done. The wow factor is gone now. Instead you're thinking about how they made the shot with miniatures and how they were just simply shaking the camera to make it seem like they're going through a rough patch of road. It'll be tough not to think about those things but if you watch this movie you have to try.

Overall, I still liked this movie despite all of its shortcomings. It is a dated movie that looks like something that would have come out as a made for TV movie. There is some dumb fun with this though. I have to give this movie a 6.5 out of 10. I wouldn't recommend this movie since there are so many good disaster movies out now. Still it's an enjoyable movie if you've run out of disaster movies to watch.