apocalypsos | (no subject)

Dante's Peak: A Review in Q&A Form

Yay! Dante's Peak! I love cheesy disaster movies!

Me, too. And this one makes me wish I had stock in Velveeta.

So what's the plot of this festival of screaming and Muppet arms?

Well, there's a volcano. And it's a total surprise when it erupts, even though it gives off every usual sign it's going to blow, including flashing neon lights, door-to-door singing telegrams, and ominous soundtrack music.

What do you do when you find out the volcano you're living on is about to explode?

I don't know about the rest of you, but I move to Kansas or London or the Sahara or anywhere else where volcanos are at a minimum.

Not you, dumbass. I meant the people in this movie.

Oh. Well, first you make sure all of your scientific data is telling you to evacuate. Then you plan to evacaute. Then you make flyers about evacuating and put a general announcement on the news about meeting to discuss evacuating. Then you all get together at the high school and talk about evacuating. Then you put on a puppet show about evacuating. Then you discuss the linguistic origins of the wod "evacuate" and discuss how it might better help organize an evacuation. Then you all share your favorite funny anecdotes you read about disaster evacuations from "Reader's Digest". Then you play a special Evacuation Day game of football. Then you show a movie marathon of films featuring evacuations. This is about the time that you should be nipple high in boiling lava.

Wait until the last minute to leave, do they?

The last minute? Was that before or after the essay contest about famous historical evacuations?

Can the snark, wenchy woman, and fill me in on the characters in this cheddar-fest.

Okay. in honor of the fact that every character in this movie is pretty much plucked from Disaster Movie Cliche central casting, I'm just going to describe the characters exactly as you see them rather than by their character names.

James Bond ... Otherwise known as Harry, the always-right volcanologist. Won the National Geological Survey's Sexiest Living Scientist swimsuit contest three years running. Falls for the mayor of Dante's Peak, thereby ensuring by disaster movie law that whatever is the worst possible scenario on the planet, that's exactly what's going to happen to them.

Sarah Connor ... Otherwise known as Rachel, the overworked mayor/cafe owner who's so overworked she named one of her children after a cracker. Falls for James Bond, because it wouldn't be a disaster movie unless someone fell into a doomed romantic relationship and because James Bond is made entirely out of sex.

Grandma Lobotomy ... Otherwise known as Ruth, Rachel's annoyingly stubborn mother-in-law. Apparently takes the prospect of Dante's Peak erupting as a personal insult, which is stupid unless they were having a torrid love affair and the mountain swore he had mumps once and it went down on him.

Not! John Connor ... Otherwise known as Graham, Rachel's punk of a son. Gets into so many life-threatening scrapes, you start to wish the Terminator would make a wrong turn into the wrong movie and bash him over the head with a two-by-four.

Little Miss Piercing Scream 1997 ... Otherwise known as Lauren, Rachel's ear-splittingly loud daughter. Is frustratingly cute and responsible, which makes you want to shove her into the nearest lava flow the longer you watch her.

Dumbass Bossman ... Otherwise known as Paul, Harry's equally frustrating boss. Continuously insists Dante's Peak will not erupt, until it does and he suddenly allows that Harry was right and he was wrong, because it would be moronic to still insist it's not going to blow when you're up to the family jewels in bubbling lava.

Volcanologist Flunkies ... Otherwise known as Terry, Greg, Nancy, and Stan, and I say that as if their names actually matter. Are mostly there to be lava fodder and because people don't believe you when you predict disaster unless you bring as many expendable one-note sidekicks as you can find.

All right, 'fess up. Disaster movie heroes always have some angst-ridden reason for everything they do. What the hell's James Bond's?

Oh, his volcanology fuckbuddy got soundly trounced by a volcano four years earlier while they were trying to drive away. Which goes to say that any chick who gets in a truck with him is just asking for trouble.

Well, what does that say about Sarah Connor?

That she has some sort of death wish, but then, you knew that.

But ... but James Bond has a Sooper Speshul Spy Truck that can drive underwater and go over hot lava!

Sure, because if you weren't already suspending your disbelief over boiled backpackers, that'd be enough to make your disbelief defy gravity and float off into the atmosphere, never to be seen again.

I just can't picture Sarah Connor as a mayor.

Yup, she's mayor, and she's got two kids, and she runs a cafe out of what looks like her laundry room. And if you ask, she'll tell you, mostly with a lot of bitching and whining about her lack of free time that indicates she's never heard of birth control and was forced to run for mayor at gunpoint.

How big of an idiot is Grandma Lobotomy?

Picture the stupidest person who's alive today. Now imagine there were two George W. Bushes.

Is that why she stays on the mountain?

Yes, because saying, "I think you're full of shit, James Bond, but I'll just come down the mountain to make sure my squalling granddaughter doesn't break anyone's eardrums" is apparently too freaking difficult.

Wait, isn't this the doofy grandma who wades through the lake of acid to save everybody?

Yeah, to drag the boat what looks about three feet to the nearby dock. Coming from someone who's in the middle of reading a book on the Lusitania where people had to fling kids eight feet to get them into the good lifeboats and succeeded at least to do that much ... yeah, smooth move, Grandma. But hey, at least she got hugged by James Bond before she croaked, so she's got that going for her.

You know, you seriously need to write a disaster movie.

Dude, I know! At least it'd be a script by someone who's actually, you know, read shit about disasters.

How creepy is it to sing "Row Row Row Your Boat" while your boat's dissolving in a lake of acid?

Methinks the screenwriter got that from a horror movie, 'cause, gyah. *shudder* Those kids are going to need a good year's worth of free therapy for that much alone.

I've got to know. Much like the question of why they don't make airplanes entirely out of the material they make black boxes from, does Plot Device the magical dog survive all of the lava because he's made entirely out of the stuff they make James Bond's Sooper Speshul Spy Trucks out of?

You'd think so, wouldn't you?

He probably outran the lava much like James Bond's Sooper Speshul Spy Truck outran the big scary major eruption.

Which would mean the dog moves roughly at between a thousand miles per hour and twice the speed of light.

So why does the dog get to live?

It's like a disaster movie trade-off. If you kill the grandmother, you can't kill any of the children or the dog, although you can hurt the dog as long as the audience doesn't have to see it. You can kill the dog and maim the grandmother, but then you can't hurt the kids. You can hurt the kids, but then you're not allowed to harm the grandmother or the dog in any way, shape or form. You can kill the kids, but at that point everybody is fair game except the dog, who gets to be the only one left standing and then gets to laugh at all of the stupid humans.

Hey, how do they finally escape that last wicked eruption?

They drive straight into the nearest mine, which is a good thing because mines are perfectly safe and never collapse under the stress of things like volcanic eruption.

I'm guessing you didn't like the movie then.

Are you kidding? As long as there's screaming and Muppet arms, I'm golden.

So how does the movie end?

Oh, you know, everybody who showed at least a sliver of intelligence gets saved, including the dog, and then Sarah Connor and James Bond make out as if there's not going to be some horrible breakup in six months where James Bond sues for custody of the kids and wins, because James Bond wants to take them on a fishing trip.

Wow, I'll bet those kids can't wait to go on that fishing trip.

I know. Especially considering the last time they rode in a boat, their grandmother was boiled in acid.