Magma: Volcanic Disaster (2006)

Waste of time

Overrated and overhyped

Just perfect...

it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

The movie does not start well. The writing, acting and sound are all about as bad as it gets, suggesting the entire movie may end up being a disaster. Not true. But the long-dormant Iceland volcano with an unpronounceable name starting with "Troll" does erupt suddenly and quickly, with terrible consequences for the people we didn't likely enjoy watching.University geology professor Dr. Peter Shepherd is teaching a class. After the bell rings, geochemistry graduate student Bree says she wants to join him on an expedition to another Iceland volcano. She knows he lost the one person who would know chemistry, and despite his protests, she perseveres and ends up on the team, which includes Kai, Christopher (there is a C.J. in the credits, so I guess that's him), Jacques, and others whose names I don't remember. Bree is too perky and enthusiastic to be believable as an intelligent scientist, but that will change later.Once again, a long-dormant Iceland volcano comes back to life way too quickly, but this time, rescuers arrive in time. Something serious is going on. In the first of many newscasts with ominous footage and an anchor lacking in personality (who we don't see), we learn thousands died. One theory for these volcanoes and others is natural gas drilling in the area. But many more of the world's best-known volcanoes are erupting suddenly and causing catastrophic damage. Surely this is not a man-made phenomenon.Well, maybe it is. Another theory is that the sum of all human activity has caused something to happen in Earth's core, and unless it is stopped, all life on Earth could vanish.Peter visits his former mentor Oskar, a creepy bald man in a wheelchair who has an accent and has quit the U.S. Geological Survey because his boss and former student Dr. Kincaid is impossible to deal with. Oskar has predicted Fuji will erupt next and he wants to be there. Yes, he knows the risks if Fuji behaves like the other volcanoes did. And from the sound of the next newscast we hear, much of Japan is gone. No, we only see the mountain blow its top and the nearby results.Peter's ex Natalie works at Yellowstone, where Old Faithful is failing to live up to its name. Could this be connected? Shepherd and Bree talk about his relationship, and later Peter and his wife have a talk.Peter and Bree appear before a government committee and present the far-fetched theory. Kincaid is not impressed and says only that volcanoes behave a certain way and give warnings, unlike the ones that have recently erupted. As Kiliminjaro and others come to life causing catastrophic destruction (Rome is essentially gone), Kincaid and those who doubted have to admit something must be done. By the way, we don't see these other events except for some news footage.Peter and his team go to Ecuador to study what can be done to predict and deal with the eruptions. Somehow they end up in Colombia at a copper mine guarded by a man with a gun who speaks no English. Weird things have happened there. Once they are in the mine, the team gathers the information they need, and then we see more excitement. This time the terrifying events last a while and we get some suspense. One question: if this tunnel is not on a map, why does it have electric lights? Did our team put them there? I doubt it.It is time to take action. Peter has enough information to go to the U.S. Navy. Other nations join in the fight. The President of the United States addresses the nation. Though he is no Kiefer Sutherland, he does a good job. But could it be too late? And is Natalie in danger?This is on the level of a TV-movie, but not as much of a disaster as some disaster movies. The actors playing Peter and Bree are actually pretty good, once Bree is no longer perky (or perhaps you can count her perky behavior as good acting). The writing is about on the same level as the typical movie of this type, but the last half-hour or so is quite exciting. Some actors with only a few lines seem like they are sitting around the table reading their lines for the first time.The visual effects are competently done but not spectacular. In most scenes we see only the minimum necessary to communicate what is happening, but toward the end we get a little more detail. Violence is not graphic (unless you count people catching on fire, but even then you can't really see anything) but several people surely die. In one case we are told the person died. This isn't bad enough to be good, but it's good enough not to be bad.

A lame disaster movie with amateurish special effects, Magma: Volcanic Disaster is another lame feature length entry from the Sci-Fi Channel. In a nutshell: A maverick scientist struggles against the usual obstacles in a race against time to save the earth from cataclysm.The special effects are glaringly awful, with lava and smoke effects that could have been produced by any sophomore at a first rate tech university. Even the soundtrack sounds like it was lifted from a dozen other disaster movies.The only saving grace of this film is the acting, led by a solid performance from character actor Xander Berkeley. Be forewarned, though, if you're watching this film solely for Reiko Aylesworth, she appears in all of ten minutes of it, and looks rather bored to be there.

Let's face it, volcanoes need little embellishment when it comes to producing fear. Why Hollywood writers don't understand that is beyond me, but their efforts to provide an "entertaining" story usually result in a silly movie. While this movie was no exception, it was better than I expected, which is a definite plus. Still, all in all, it was a pretty bad movie.The movie starts out with a geological survey team on a dormant volcano in Iceland. When the volcano unexpectedly roars back to life, the team is unable to get off the mountain before being engulfed in lava. Enter our hero, Peter Shepherd (Xander Berkeley), a vulcanologist teaching in Rochester, NY. The term has just ended, and Shepherd, along with four of his TA's, is off to Iceland to find out why the geological survey team has gone missing (apparently no one saw the eruption?). History repeats itself when the volcano erupts again while Shepherd and his team are on the mountain, but this time they escape without injury. Confused by this turn of events, Shepherd consults his old mentor, a now wheelchair bound old man, who claims that this is the start of his "Exodus theory" in which mankind has somehow caused the core of the earth to heat up and expand, which is causing all of the volcanic eruptions. This will result in the possible extinction of life on earth. Shepherd takes this to the government, but the chief geologist, whose only motive seems to be to discredit Shepherd, balks. When Mt. Fuji erupts, killing Shepherd's mentor, Shepherd feels he must act to convince the government that he's right. His trip to South America to investigate more vulcanism results in the death of one of his students, the serious injury of another, and the discovery that his rival in the US government is stealing his theory. Shepherd races back to the states with a daring plan to ease the vulcanism. Along the way, he is also trying to reconcile with his estranged wife, Natalie (Reiko Aylesworth), getting advice on this from the female member of his team, Briana Chapman (Amy Jo Johnson). Will he be able to convince the government to adopt his plan? Will he be able to get his wife back?It's a classic disaster movie plot. The problem is, it's exceptionally poorly written. The science is a bit off, although perhaps not as much as some of the other volcanic offerings we've seen. Still if our use of nuclear radiation is causing the problem, it doesn't make sense to us it to solve the problem. Shepherd and his team take senseless risks that cost them dearly. It's hard to believe a skilled vulcanologist would keep losing members of his team that way. In addition, the whole subplot about Shepherd's estranged wife was pretty lame, and more confusing was Briana's fascination with Shepherd. Was she falling in love with Shepherd? What about her boyfriend, who was also on Shepherd's team? Equally strange was Shepherd's mentor's insistence on being on Mt. Fuji when it erupted. At first, it seemed that he was there to study the volcano, perhaps to help convince the Japanese of the danger. However, all he seems to do is watch and wait for the pyroclastic flow to get him. Was this supposed to be an honorable suicide? And why did his companion stay when he'd asked her to leave? And why such animosity between Shepherd and the chief geologist for the government? Oddest though, were several scenes of characters we knew nothing about succumbing to the lava. These were purely gratuitous, and seemed to make little sense. Overall, there is much in this movie that could have been left out, in favor of a few more scenes explaining some of the more confusing aspects of the story.The acting was a mixed bag. I liked Xander Berkely as Shepherd, and felt that he breathed some life into the character. Likewise Amy Jo Johnson did a good job with Briana, although her interactions with Shepherd were a bit confusing. Berkeley and Johnson had better chemistry than either had with their love interest in the story. Most of the rest of the acting was relatively wooden, and really didn't help liven the story any.In the end, this could have been much better. But I do take some heart in the fact that it could have been much worse.

A far fetched contrivance. Professor Peter Shepard(Xander Berkeley),in his dedication to volcanology, realizes that unexpected volcanic activity spanning the globe, is earth's way of signaling a warning of imminent catastrophic danger nearing mankind to extinction. Shepard and a group of his students take a field trip to gather information to devise a plan to ward off disaster and save the planet. This low budget made-for-cable action drama at times depends on ridiculous situations and painfully awkward dialogue to move the story along. The CGI is not exactly top notch and neither is most of the cast. Players of note: Amy Jo Johnson, Reiko Aylesworth, David O'Donnell, George R. Sheffey and Michael Durrell.