volcano be a b movie at best and and at bad be more of a disaster that what it suppose to be depict . to be fair and you have to be prepare in any movie to suspend disbelief for one major concept . volcano ask you to suspend disbelief in science and human interaction and and common sense . tommy lee jones get to be the studly yet 1990s sensitive head honcho of the office of emergency management and and he fine when he not stick with the stupid dialogue the script provide . however and anne heche give a howlingly bad performance a a smart as geologist who become roark love interest ( while the city be burn down and natch ) . gaby hoffman go from field of dream and american president to a turn a a whimpering and needy and and victim for life daughter of jones . don cheadle get to sit in a really coooool office and take jones phone call and do the job that in reality roark would and should be do . anyway and the movie really start go downhill when heche geology partner get suck into a lava vent while theyre break into the subway line . it pick up speed when jones start suggest that they use bus to dam the flow of the lava flow down the street and heche geologist ( who love to lecture everyone about the science of geology ) be apparently oblivious to the fact that lava be hot and it melt metal and and rock and and a dead bus be unlikely to have much effect . it really start to suck when the film introduces rodney king like racial tension between two bad actor dress a cop and an angry black man who can not understand why the fire department be busy with this large river of flow lava . but hey and in the end and the three of them will be work together to build a k rail dam to stop the lava from eat up his neighborhood and even though the dam be build in the wrong direction and the material use wouldn not stop lava anyway . besides and k rail be hardly watertight and but i guess lava wouldn not think to poke it head through the gap and not when tommy lee jones be glare at it . don not even get me start on the strand subway car subplot and where a tunnelful of hot lava be come down but oddly enough and it not too hot to attempt a rescue and it not too smoky to see and and there aren not any poisonous gas so everyone can breathe . this must be la lava and or lava lite . you know and it eat car but be eco friendly . there be moment of sheer camp here that almost make you wonder if this be mean to be a comedy . for instance and the two security guard pack up hieronymus bosch painting have a completely meaningless and farcical conversation about weight and and at the end and no sooner do the little boy roark or jones rescue note that everyone look the same while cover in ash and than a rainstorm break out and clean everyone up and then the sun come out and heche say something along the line of and aw and shuck and roark . volcano almost achieve battlefield earth status and but except for heche no one approach travolta like badness and the technical aspect be handle pretty well . if you be from the la area a i be and it kind of funny to think of a lava flow wipe out wilshire boulevard . i give it a three for the effect and the little amount of tension you get from this .