This is about a group of underground tunnel workers in NY who come across some molten lava while digging a new sewer. There's also a mad scientist who's conducting experiments in geo-thermal power which involves digging deep into the earth and using the heat to power a generator or something. That's what causes the volcano to start erupting. The woman who comes to investigate for the government just happens to be the ex-wife of the tunnel digger, and of course we run through the usual cliché of them disliking each other and then getting back together over the course of the movie. There's also a lot of time spent as some federal bureau comes in, shuts down the work of our heroes, and blames the whole thing on terrorists. Yes, someone has to stand in the way of our heroes doing what must be done, if for no other reason than that it's in the handbook of required clichés for disaster movies.
Overall, it's just insanely cheesy and silly, with lines like "They're screwing with the pressure of the Earth's crust". Another scene involves lava erupting out of a guy's house and killing 70 people, but the authorities are apparently too stupid to notice the lava (I would think it would be painfully obvious), so they think it was a terrorist bomb. I also got a kick out of how a wood frame house could contain molten lava - until the guy opens the door! The special effects are funny throughout the whole movie, it adds a certain B movie charm I suppose. I especially liked the part where a single pistol round is all that's required to reroute the lava from one tunnel to another. The acting is pretty spotty, the evil genius guy is prone to scenery chewing, and one of the female characters manages to pull off Mexican, Italian and Czechoslovakian accents over the course of her performance. The two main characters turn in good enough performances.
I say this is not too terrible - for a disaster movie - because there's no sappy melodrama involving kids, pregnant women, sanctimonious paramedics, or inner city gang members. There's no speech by the black or female president at the end saying "we should have listened to the environmentalists". And best of all, there's no little girl looking at a bunch of people covered in volcanic ash and saying "Look mommy, they're all the same color". Oddly enough, for a disaster movie, the "special" effects actually serve as a backdrop for the story, not the other way around. But still it's just so tiresomely predictable that it's hard to make it through to the end.
