So, obviously, this film invites immediate comparison with 1998's Volcano, which *also* features a volcano suddenly erupting in the middle of LA. But, surprisingly, it actually does a better job with the concept in a lot of respects. While the acting can be uneven at times, the characters were pretty compelling and provided a lot of self-aware Hollywood humor. The VFX was pretty hokey, but that's to be expected for a film with this kind of budget. What I was most surprised, however, was the degree of scientific accuracy--while, of course, the foundational premise of a volcano erupting in LA is implausible to say the least, once you get past that, it's obvious whoever wrote the script did their homework. Newport-Englewood is the name of an actual fault line that really does vent helium, and indeed is thought to be unusually deep. Earthquake swarms are well-known prognosticator of volcanic eruptions. Cow pie bombs, regrettably, are an actual eruptive phenomenon. The ending is total nonsense--flooding lava tubes with water wouldn't stop the eruption, merely cause monumental steam explosions, but hey, that's how disaster movies go. Still, the level of background scientific information was much more than I've come to expect from budget films like these.
All in all, it's not a terrific film, but it's honestly better than its big budget predecessor.
All in all, it's not a terrific film, but it's honestly better than its big budget predecessor.