Dante’s Peak on DVD

• Cat.no: UDR 90002
• Cert: 12
• Running time: 110 minutes
• Year: 1997
• Pressing: 1999
• Region(s): 2, PAL
• Chapters: 38 plus extras
• Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Surround, Mono
• Languages: English, French, German, Italian, Czech, Hungarian, Spanish, Polish
• Subtitles: English, French, Danish, Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian, Dutch, Greek
• Widescreen: 2.35:1
• 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
• Macrovision: Yes
• Disc Format: DVD 9
• Price: £19.99
• Extras : Scene index, Theatrical trailer, Biographies, Filmographies, Production Notes,Booklet

Director:

Roger Donaldson

(The Bounty, Cadillac Man, Cocktail, The Getaway (1994), No Way Out, Species, White Sands)

Producers:

Screenplay:

Leslie Bohem

Music:

James Newton Howard (Flatliners)

Cast:

Harry Dalton: Pierce Brosnan (Goldeneye, The Lawnmower Man, Live Wire, The Long Good Friday, Mars Attacks!, The Mirror Has Two Faces, Mrs Doubtfire, The Thomas Crown Affair (1999), Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough)
Rachel Wando: Linda Hamilton (Children Of The Corn, Mr Destiny, Shadow Conspiracy, Terminator 1 & 2, TV: Beauty and the Beast)
Paul Dreyfus: Charles Hallahan (Body of Evidence, Dave, Executive Decision, The Fan, Fatal Beauty, Pale Rider, Silkwood, The Thing, Vision Quest, Warlock: The Armageddon)

Dante’s Peakis a town with a problem – it’s built around a volcano; and not only that butone that is about to speak. Volcanologist Pierce Brosnan and his teamof experts, including his boss Charles Hallahan, are soon in the townand on the case but not long after the latter has declared the town safetell-tale signs begin to appear such as brown tap water and whacking greatcracks in the ground with gas escaping from them. Little by little the smallproblems become big ones as they try to evacuate the town headed by mayoressLinda Hamilton, playing Brosnan’s potential love interest.

What follows is strictly plot-by-numbers which heads towards more of a dramathan an action film, making this to Volcano what Deep Impact wasto Armageddon. It also treads some of the more obvious and well-wornroutes that can annoy you about a film such as the moment when they decide togo back for the old dear who can’t bear to leave her home at the top of a hill.Inside the house they move out of the way just as molten lava pours through thewindow and later on when they’re all boat-bound through a deadly lake, theycan’t quite make it to shore so granny decides to get out and give it a pull,burning her legs in the process. Everyone tries to help her afterwards as thepain gets worse but no, she decides to lay down and die – just like that withouta hint of self-worth and it really irks me when characters just decide to callit a day when they could quite as easily carry on living.

Other scenes of annoyance of note comes when they think that the family dogis dead, but lo and behold he’s later found and jumps into the car to safetywhen they find him, since you don’t want the RSPCA on your back. At the endsomething actually happens as the volcano gives out, destroying everything inits path. Brosnan shouts “Don’t look back!” and puts his foot to the floor,looking in his rear-view mirror as the CGI effects kick in. Alas, some of thestandalone explosion shots look more like toy-town being blown up, Adam andJoe Show-style. Worse still, although the destruction makes mincemeat ofeverything, one wonders why, when Brosnan’s car gets stuck in an undergroundtunnel, that the path of destruction stops right there and doesn’t take the tunnelwith it since it holds scant regard for everything else.

The picture looks rather grainy throughout the film but is fairly watchable from theusual viewing distance. The level of grain is consistent so I’m curious as to whatexactly went wrong in the encoding process. The film is presented in itsoriginal widescreen ratio of 2.35:1 and is anamorphically-enhanced for 16:9widescreen televisions which provides 33% higher resolution – and the average bitrateis a very good 8.58Mb/s, regularly peaking over 9Mb/s.

The sound is excellent though as explosions come across very loud as they should be andthe occasional rumble in the jungle proving very effective. The dialogue is availablein eight languages, half of them in Dolby Digital 5.1.

Dante’s Peak is one of the first Universal DVDs to be released under theColumbia TriStar label, but while it has top-quality sound and a wealth of languageand subtitles options, the picture quality leaves a little to be desired.A director’s commentary track, as featured on the Special Edition NTSC Laserdiscwould also be a nice inclusion instead of a mono Polish dialogue track.

FILM : **PICTURE QUALITY: ***SOUND QUALITY: *****EXTRAS: ***——————————-OVERALL: ***

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 1999.