Dante's Peak

Dante's Peak is a 1997 American disaster film directed by Roger Donaldson, written by Leslie Bohem, and starring Pierce Brosnan, Linda Hamilton, and Charles Hallahan. The film is set in the fictional town of Dante's Peak where the inhabitants fight to survive a volcanic eruption from a long dormant stratovolcano that has suddenly woken up. The film was released on February 7, 1997, under the production of Universal Pictures and Pacific Western Productions. It received mixed reviews from critics but was an average success financially. It was the last film in which Charles Hallahan starred before his death nine months later in November 1997.

It is the third film collaboration between Gale Anne Hurd and Hamilton, who both previously worked in the first two Terminator films.

Plot
In 1993, USGS volcanologist Harry Dalton and his partner-turned-fiancée Marianne attempt to escape an ongoing eruption in Colombia. As they venture out, a lava bomb smashes through the roof of the truck, killing Marianne.

Four years later, despite the trauma he suffered in the course of his employment, Harry is indifferently assigned by his superior Dr. Paul Dreyfus to investigate seismic activity near the town of Dante's Peak, Washington, a town that borders a stratovolcano. Harry arrives and meets Mayor Rachel Wando with her children Graham and Lauren. Rachel offers to take Harry with them as they see her former mother-in-law Ruth, an elderly hermit who lives near the lake at the base of the volcano.

While exploring, they find dead trees, dead squirrels, and two people boiled to death in a hot spring. Harry manages to stop Graham from jumping into the spring upon seeing the bodies. Harry instructs Paul to bring a USGS team to monitor the volcano, but their initial survey finds no indications of volcanic activity. Paul advises against Harry putting the town on alert. Still, Harry tries to convince Rachel to prepare for a disaster while developing a relationship with her and the children.

One day, Harry and his co-worker Terry examine the summit's crater until a rock slide traps Terry, causing him to suffer a broken leg. Both men are rescued by helicopter. Days go by showing no signs of any threat or activity. Paul decides that no danger is imminent and the USGS team begins preparing to leave. When Harry goes to say goodbye to Rachel, they discover that the town's water supply has been contaminated with sulfur dioxide. The next morning, seismic readings and sulfur levels rise dramatically. Finally convinced that the volcano will erupt and with the National Guard unavailable until the next day, Paul gives Harry permission to put the town on alert.

As a town meeting takes place at the high school, an earthquake strikes and the eruption begins. Harry and Rachel go to retrieve the children only to discover that they have gone to get Ruth, who refused to leave her home. Just as they reach Ruth and the children, a lava flow engulfs Ruth's cabin and destroys the vehicles both parties used to get there. The five flee across the lake in a motorboat, but the boat stops just metres from the shore due to sulfur-containing volcanic gases reacting with the lake water to make sulfuric acid, which destroys the motor and rapidly corrodes the boat's steel hull, sinking it. Ruth jumps out of the boat to help it to shore, suffering severe chemical burns that eventually prove fatal. Harry and the Wandos take a Forest Service ranger's truck to continue down the mountain and save Ruth's dog Roughy as they cross a lava flow.

Meanwhile, the National Guard helps remaining townspeople and the USGS team evacuate. As they leave, a lahar created by the melting ice breaks the upstream dam. While the rest of the team gets across, Paul and his van fail to clear the bridge before it is washed away by the flood, throwing Paul overboard to his death.

Harry and the Wandos arrive at the remains of the town. Harry retrieves a distress radiobeacon from the USGS workshop and learns that the volcano is due for one last eruption. Moments later, the volcano undergoes a cataclysmic lateral blast, triggering a pyroclastic flow which obliterates everything in its path within seconds. With no way out of town, Harry and the Wandos reach an abandoned mine where Graham likes to hang out. The USGS team, watching the eruption from afar, presumes Harry to be dead. Inside the mine, Harry realizes that he left the beacon in the truck. When he goes back for it, aftershocks cause rocks to fall. Harry suffers a broken arm and is trapped in the truck, but is able to activate the beacon.

Days later, Terry notices that the beacon has been activated and the USGS dispatches search and rescue teams. Harry and the Wandos are freed from the mine, reunited with Harry's team, and airlifted out by helicopter.

As the credits roll, the camera pans over the obliterated town and turns to the volcano with its upper half now reduced to a Mount St. Helens-like volcanic crater.

Cast

 * Pierce Brosnan as Harry Dalton, a volcanologist for the USGS.
 * Linda Hamilton as Rachel Wando, the Mayor of Dante's Peak who also runs a coffeeshop.
 * Charles Hallahan as Paul Dreyfus, Harry's superior.
 * Grant Heslov as Greg, a member of the USGS.
 * Kirk Trutner as Terry, a member of the USGS.
 * Elizabeth Hoffman as Ruth, the former mother-in-law of Rachel.
 * Jeremy Foley as Graham Wando, the son of Rachel.
 * Jamie Renée Smith as Lauren Wando, the daughter of Rachel and the sister of Graham.
 * Arabella Field as Nancy, a member of the USGS.
 * Tzi Ma as Stan, a member of the USGS.
 * Lee Garlington as Dr. Jane Fox
 * Bill Bolender as Sheriff Turner, the sheriff of Dante's Peak.
 * Peter Jason as Norman Gates
 * Hansford Rowe as Warren Cluster, the manager and proprietor of the motel "Cluster's Last Stand".
 * Christopher Murray as a pricey helicopter pilot that the USGS enlist.
 * Walker Brandt as Marianne

Production
Principal photography began on May 6, 1996. The film was shot on location in Wallace, Idaho.

Exterior shots of the Point Dume Post Office in Malibu, California, were used as the USGS's David A. Johnston Cascades Volcano Observatory headquarters in Vancouver, Washington. The facility was named in honor of David A. Johnston, a young scientist who had precisely predicted the volatility of the May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens eruption and perished during the event.

The scene involving the geological robot and the trapped scientist was shot inside the crater of Mount St. Helens, as evinced by a brief appearance of Mount Adams, a dormant 12776 ft peak 35 mi east of Mount St. Helens, as the film focuses on the scientists. The scene itself was actually filmed on the tarmac of Van Nuys Airport, while the Mount Adams image was composited in later. Production was completed on August 31, 1996.

Extensive special effects surrounding certain aspects of the film, such as the lava and pyroclastic flows, were created by Digital Domain, Banned from the Ranch Entertainment, and CIS Hollywood. The computer-generated imagery was mostly coordinated and supervised by Patrick McClung, Roy Arbogast, Lori J. Nelson, Richard Stutsman, and Dean Miller. Although the film uses considerable amounts of CGI, the volcanic ash in the film was created using cellulose insulation manufactured by Regal Industries in Crothersville, Indiana. Between visuals, miniatures, and animation, over 300 technicians were directly involved in the production aspects of the special effects.

Locations

 * Wallace, Idaho (the fictional town)
 * Mirror Lake, 4 mi southeast of Sagle, Idaho (Grandma Ruth's lakeside house)
 * Baker Hot Springs, Mount Baker National Forest, Washington
 * Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument, Washington (establishing shots)
 * Agua Dulce, California
 * Point Dume Post Office, Malibu, California (USGS's David A. Johnston Cascades Volcano Observatory headquarters)

Music
The original score was co-composed by John Frizzell and James Newton Howard. Howard wrote the main theme (heard during the opening titles) and a number of cues, while Frizzell wrote the bulk of the score.

Thirty minutes of the score was released by Varèse Sarabande; the short album length being due to high orchestra fees at the time of release. An expanded bootleg exists that contains almost the entire score.

The contents of the CD release can also be found on the region 1 DVD, and Blu-ray on an alternate audio track during the 'Creating a Volcano' documentary.

The "Main Titles" cue is also featured on Varèse's The Towering Inferno and Other Disaster Classics compilation album.

Home media
Dante's Peak was released on VHS and LaserDisc on August 19, 1997.

Box office
The film was released on February 7, 1997 in 2,657 theatres. It debuted at #2 at the box office behind the special edition re-release of Star Wars; it took in $18 million in its opening weekend. After eight weeks in theatres, it had grossed $67.1 million in the United States and $111.0 million overseas, for a total of $178 million worldwide.

Critical reception
Dante's Peak received mostly negative reviews compared to the generally mixed reviews of its rival. Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a 28% rating based on 32 reviews, compared to a 49% rating from 47 reviews for Volcano. The consensus for Dante's Peak states: "The movie works when things are on fire, but everything else - from dialogue to characters - is scathingly bad."

Both Siskel and Ebert had mixed feelings about the film. Gene Siskel gave it two and a half stars out of four and wrote, "It takes a full hour for the volcano to blow in Dante's Peak, and when it does, the movie really starts to cook. The special effects of rivers of lava, snowstorms of volcanic ash and a river of acid water are top-notch. Can I recommend half of a movie?" Roger Ebert also gave the film two and a half stars out of four and wrote, "Dante's Peak is constructed about as skillfully as a disaster movie can be, and there were times when I found it working for me, sort of. But hasn't this genre pretty much been played out to the point of exhaustion?"

Geologists' reception and educational purpose
The film attracted geologists to create dedicated "information page" to reach out to students interested in science, including the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the University of Maryland. The fact-checking on USGS's information page concluded "in many but not all respects, the movie's depiction of eruptive hazards hits close to the mark". On the other hand, two professors at the Lewis-Clark State College panned the movie for understating the negative effects of a possible false alarm.

The film is also a popular film viewing and discussion in science classes in the United States.