Prelude to Dante's Peak

Hey remember that OTHER volcano movie from 1997? Well its here on Stinker Madness to finally help us answer that age old question: which 1997 volcano movie is the most stupid? Dante's Peak stars Pierce Brosnan and Linda Hamilton.

Roman's Do's and Don'ts

• Ninja Busters - Bluray only $24.99 on Amazon
• Dangerous Men - $3.99 on YouTube
• The Barbarians - YouTube

The Wild Card - The Great Superpower Debate

Extreme resistance to extreme heat but only from above - 3/10 stars

About Dante's Peak - Movie Information

Sam's Boring Bullshit

These volcano movies of '97 really did poorly. Volcano had turned $47 million against a $120 million budget and the similarly themed Dante's Peak made $67 million versus a budget of $178 million. Apparently geology, is not box office gold, nor was it enough to keep me awake during my second semester in college. It should also be noted that this thing was almost as expensive as Titanic - the most expensive movie of all time when released.

This volcano movie was directed by Roger Donaldson. You may remember his film Smash Palace. If not you might remember No Way Out or the remake of The Getaway, Species perhaps. If you like really shitty movies you may remember his films Cocktail and Cadillac Man. I am going to give Donaldson some credit here. Apparently Universal became engaged in a race with 20th Century Fox to see who could release their respective stupid volcano movie the fastest. Donaldson was able to shoot fast enough that Dante's Peak hit theaters nearly two months faster and reap the sweet rewards of just as poor a box office return.

I would have thought this was the cooling period in Pierce Brosnan's career but not the case. He has has a long career full of ups and downs. It would seem that only recently has he had his longest stretch without a rebound performance.

Linda Hamilton was still married to Cameron at this point, but then somewhere on a fake boat Kate Winslet took her shirt off.

KAEOF: In the credit's does one of the "uncredited" actors decide to receive billing as Jack Mehoff? Or is this movie so dubious that someone has placed Jack Mehoff on the Wiki for the film and gone unnoticed. Also there should be another Grant Heslov sighting and we should decide if Brosnan was right: Apparently he practiced the line "It's a pyroclastic cloud!" for almost a week. Regarding this Brosnan has been quoted as saying "It is the movies key emotional scene and I needed to get that enunciation just right. That's acting.". So we'll vote on his performance.