by Warner Home Video
Sales Rank: 2625
Price: $14.98
When a volcano erupts on an island resort, an oilman (Newman) leads a small group of people to safety.
Viewer Reviews Trouble's brewing on a tropical isle: Oilman Paul Newman has just struck oil, but what's that funny smell? Turns out the island's long-dormant volcano is about to blow. When it does, half of the folks stay at the hotel (read: Lava Target Cental) while Newman takes a small band across the island to a safe spot. Will they make it?
This movie is just terrible in every respect. Clearly, producer Irwin Allen (The Poseidon Adventure, The Towering Inferno) had lost his creative spark by 1980 when this was made. The cast is full of top-notch actors (Newman and William Holden among them) but the script and the direction are abysmal. The sound is poor and background noises often overwhelm the voices which sound tinny. The actors spend all their time looking staring blankly at each other while the soundtrack booms away melodramatically. One scene of the principals crossing a burning bridge that just happens to be over the volcano seemed to last forever; it wasn't helped when Burgess Meredith, as an old circus performer, wire-walks across carrying a child. Disaster-flick vets Ernest Borgnine and Red Buttons share a small subplot but no chemistry whatever. For that matter, none of the players conveyed any sense of relationship; several requisite romances all fell flat.
Any movie that considers a cock fight to the death hosted by Pat Morita to be comic relief is just lame. This ill-conceived movie is a true disaster.
