Eruption: LA

So, obviously, this film invites immediate comparison with 1998's Volcano, which *also* features a volcano suddenly erupting in the middle of LA. But, surprisingly, it actually does a better job with the concept in a lot of respects. While the acting can be uneven at times, the characters were pretty compelling and provided a lot of self-aware Hollywood humor. The VFX was pretty hokey, but that's to be expected for a film with this kind of budget. What I was most surprised, however, was the degree of scientific accuracy--while, of course, the foundational premise of a volcano erupting in LA is implausible to say the least, once you get past that, it's obvious whoever wrote the script did their homework. Newport-Englewood is the name of an actual fault line that really does vent helium, and indeed is thought to be unusually deep. Earthquake swarms are well-known prognosticator of volcanic eruptions. Cow pie bombs, regrettably, are an actual eruptive phenomenon. The ending is total nonsense--flooding lava tubes with water wouldn't stop the eruption, merely cause monumental steam explosions, but hey, that's how disaster movies go. Still, the level of background scientific information was much more than I've come to expect from budget films like these. All in all, it's not a terrific film, but it's honestly better than its big budget predecessor.

Forget the terrible special effects and the bad acting. Why is every character in this film angry and obnoxious? They don't speak with one another, they spit and screech. Is this supposed to be a comment about Los Angeles? I thought Angelenos were supposed to be vacant, not aggressive and irritable.

A typical B-movie disaster flick. Our intrepid renegade heroes try to convince the disbelieving authorities of their plan to no avail. The heroine is a random washed up B-movie actress so plenty of in-jokes and self-referencing. Cheesy CGI effects and an action climax. Don't bother.

Cheap local made production & it shows with b , c or d grade actors & script. Not sure why they had to make this garbage when "Volcano" had already been produced & is a pretty good film. Certainly compares as an 'A' compared to this muck.

OK so bottom line - this isn't a very good film. That's mainly down to the special effects admittedly, but not entirely. Some of the performances are decent (Tom Schanley is particularly good and believable) but unfortunately some really aren't. That said, despite it not being a good film I still enjoyed it. If you can ignore the terrible effects, clearly done on a very strict budget, then it's a fun disaster movie. Most disaster movies are best watched with your brain mostly turned off anyway, and that's the best way to watch this one too.

Horrendous excuse of a movie. Script, acting and special FX are worst I have ever seen. There are movies from the 60s that had better FX. Main actor dude was just utterly embarrasing.

For starts and all these are just my own opinions it was a mild rip of of "Volcano" at times the acting was pretty bad and boring. the special effects were not special at all and pretty bad even for a B movie. tho on the upside. it had a decent plot and decent storyline. not badly written and had a few amusing lines in it. so not bad for in background type of movie.

WHY is it that most earthquakes, eruptions (not to mention warewolves, vampires etc) all appear in the Los Angeles area, and usially just around the corner from a film studio ? This waste of effort is a typical example, with the added spice of bad acting, bad effects and just about bad everything else ! I just hope tha Frankenhouse, Slack & Szew got some of their money back ...