Super eruption

Why, oh why, do I keep finding myself watching SyFy original movies. I guess it's for the same reason I keep eating Bicky Burgers. You know it's not good for you, that it'll give you zits and heartburn. But damn it, it's just easy too swallow. However after sitting through it, you do have watchers guilt. You could have spend the same amount of time to watch Sunset Blvd again. Or Rear Window. Or really anything else not made by the SyFy channel.

Super Eruption is the unholy child of Dante's Peak and Frequency. Two movies I like very much. It's a cross made without any talent for screenwriting (often it feels like whole chunks of the movie are missing- like how did they get from here to there... could be I fell asleep. Could be bad writing. ) The special effects are far from special. They look like they were made by my grandmother using the Paint program on her Windows 95 computer.

The actors are there, enjoying the Bulgarian sights, possibly evaluating their life's choices. Pretty much what I'm doing, every time I finish one of these things.

In fact I found this movie pretty awful. Not the worst I've seen from SyFy, but this is little consolation. The premise seemed decent if not exactly new territory, and I have seen some of the actors before and I wouldn't call them bad actors overall(I am especially looking at MyAnna Buring). But you would never guess seeing here. It is not terrible or hilariously bad as much, but nobody is really believable and come across as bland. It doesn't help that the script is so cheesy, wishy-washy and sometimes confused too, or that you don't care for the characters at all, for they continue to be written in an underdeveloped and stereotypical manner. The music is both forgettable and sluggish-sounding. But where Super Eruption really falls down is in the story and special effects. The story is a good, if as I've said familiar, but it manages to be predictable and preposterous, with the whole business about the main character being able to see and talk to herself from a different dimension through a computer doesn't make sense, was superfluous to the entire story and with a slightly longer length the film could've explained this much more. The romance was clichéd and hokey as well. I have seen worse effects like in Titanic II, but the ones here do still look fake and as though they were made in a rush. All in all, awful instead of super, dull instead of interesting and preposterous instead of plausible or thrilling, in short not SyFy's worst but still a disaster of a film. 1/10 Bethany Cox

I was looking forward to watching a new and exciting disaster movie this evening. This movie was a total waste of my two hours. Although the basic story is good - Yellowstone erupting, which scientists say is inevitable, the storyline is totally ludicrous. The scenes where the main character sees and talks to herself through her computer, from apparently another dimension, makes no sense whatsoever and doesn't add a thing to the story. The special effects as well are just pitiful.

If there's nothing else to watch on TV and you don't care about wasting two hours, then go for it; otherwise, you'll be better off spending that time reading a good book. I wish that's what I had done! In my opinion, this is one of many badly scripted made-for-TV science fiction movies that has come out of Hollywood in the past two decades. Seems they don't know how to make them anymore!

Yet another volcano disaster film and made by the Syfy channel?! Never really stood a chance did it?

Thing is this is slightly tweaked. What do you get when you cross a volcano movie with Frequency (2000)? You get Super Eruption which isn't as bad as you'd think.

It tells the story of an eruption occurring underneath Yellowstone park and the usual attempts at stopping it through pseudo science.

Super Eruption however has a scifi twist to it which both makes it more interesting and considerably less credible. The concept makes you think but it's 100% guaranteed to cause a migraine or two.

The decent cast keep the movie from falling into mediocrity, and though it is just another scyfy original it's certainly watchable.

The Good:

Cast do a good job

Some interesting ideas

The Bad:

Poor sfx

Usual levels of baffling stupidity

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

Would Yellowstone erupting actual cause the end of the world? Let's not find out

So many ways this is so bad. Start with the special effects, which were probably not as good as high school movie students could do. Add in dialogue, like: "You can't, it's a suicide mission." followed by "fine, just do it." The acting is routine for a low budget movie, and the plot throws in an interesting twist. The premise is that if Yellowstone erupts, it will be the end of the world as we know it, and Kate, a volcanologist is the only one who can stop the eruption. Main characters who were supposed to be rangers wore arm patches that were not even close mimics for park rangers, and the tiny helicopter shown certainly couldn't have room for all that flew with them. They are flying planes and helicopters low and over the magma, ignoring that lightning is often a feature of volcanic eruptions. And planes do not like to fly through volcanic ash. They throw in a lot of falling ash, and while people are warned to cover their noses and mouths, Charlie, the ranger in charge of the park, doesn't seem to need to do that. But the most remarkable aspect is the durability of the actors, in being able to be very close to flowing magma, walking through burning forests and covered with ash, but not being all that bothered by the toxic fumes. Grab the popcorn, and put your mind in idle. But don't expect much. Three stars may be generous, but I cannot fault the actors for lack of a decent budget.