Hoping to ‘fan-boy’ up film coverage readership with genre savvy writers, ever longer reviews on marquee titles, and recurring beyond-the-algorithm lists covering Horror, Foreign, Action, the New York Times recently added participatory fluff like Good-Bad films. That’s where we found this unlikely/unloved ‘90s disaster flop getting the Gen X nostalgia treatment. Easily confused with Guilty Pleasure pics (laugh with it) or films ‘so bad they’re good’ (laugh at it), whatever your definition (perfect analogy: Tex-Mex Frito Pie), this ain’t it; not so much Good or Bad, but Generic. It’s also, as disaster pics go, more ‘70s (naturally caused like EARTHQUAKE*) than ‘90s (a threat from Outer Space). Journeyman director Mick Jackson fails to class up the form (presumably what made middlebrow movie execs buy into the project), and no one involved has (or will admit to) the Junk Food æsthetic needed. Tasteful trash won’t cut it. City Commissioner Tommy Lee Jones crinkles his way thru the crisis while chilly co-star Anne Heche tags bravely along as chief geologist after losing her assistant in a gassy crevasse.* With kids and puppies to wander into trouble; middle-aged White martyrs saving minorities; a big Black baddass, ‘cuffed by a White racist cop but still turning lava away from an endangered neighborhood. One plus comes from seeing a late example of pre-CGI ordnance and Don Cheadle, as Tommy Lee’s deputy at Command Central, coax a few laughs while trying to wheedle his way onto the field. But it’s all pretty dull. How could they set the stage for catastrophe at La Brea Tar Pits and not have some dinosaur spew out with the lava is beyond me.
DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: *Not a Good/Bad film nor a Bad/Good film, EARTHQUAKE/'74 is a Bad/Bad film. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2014/10/earthquake-1974.html
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *The last screen blonde this chilly was Victoria Tennant, directed in L.A. STORY/’91 by none other than Mick Jackson.
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