Since we've had volcanoes destroy LA (Volcano) and NYC (Disaster Zone: Volcano in New York), someone decided to let Miami in on the action. The original title, Miami Magma, had both alliteration and assonance, and was really quite clever. Unfortunately, SyFy decided to change it to Swamp Volcano, which is merely confusing, since swamps do not evoke Miami and vice versa, and only a very small portion of the movie actually takes place in a swamp. And unfortunately, the rest of the movie is on equally unsolid ground.
This cautionary tale about oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico starts off with an explosion on an oil rig owned by Holter Energy. The explosion occurs when they drill into magma instead of oil. Unfortunately, the CEO (Brad Dourif) and head of PR (Cleavant Derrick) seem to be more concerned about misleading the public, and hiding an illegal, although very lucrative, drilling operation in downtown Miami. Geology professor, Antoinette Vitrini (Rachel Hunter) becomes concerned when her ex-husband, Brad (J.D. Evermore) informs her that Holter's drilling activities seem to parallel her unpublished research. She has even more to be concerned about when she learns that her assistant, Brandon (Griff Furst), on whom her much younger sister, Emily (Melissa Ordway) has a crush, has sold her research to Holter. When she confronts Holter, she only manages to convince them that they need to kill her to keep her silent. Unfortunately, by this time, volcanic activity has started cropping up around Miami, so Antoinette must race against time, and potential assassins to save not herself and her sister, but all of Miami. Can she and Brandon do it?
I'll give the writers credit for some plausibility in suggesting that the Gulf of Mexico could be the caldera of a supervolcano, even though it's pretty widely accepted that the gulf is the result of continental drift. However, apparently they don't know geography terribly well, since Miami is on the Atlantic side of Florida, and therefore highly unlikely to be affected by vulcanism in the Gulf of Mexico. They really should have set the movie in Tampa. Equally hard to buy was the whole concept of a "steam tsunami" generated by an underwater eruption. Volcanoes erupt underwater all the time. They have to be pretty close to the surface in order to generate any kind of steam plume that could be threatening, and steam plumes don't behave the way they did in this movie. The "steam tsunami" really behaved more like a pyroclastic flow, which might have worked better. And I'm not sure I buy that liquid nitrogen could be used to redirect the flow of lava from an eruption. All in all, not very credible science.
The rest of the writing wasn't terribly credible, either. Antoinette and Emily appear to be very far apart in age, almost too far apart to be sisters, and it might have worked better if they were written as mother and daughter. It's also hard to buy that Antoinette, who is supposedly an experienced professor, wouldn't take better care to make sure that all of her students were accounted for before leaving one behind to get boiled in the swamp. Emily starts off as rather immature, and there's really nothing to indicate the kind of growth her character experiences throughout the movie. Brandon's motives both for selling Antoinette's research, and for his altruism at the end of the movie aren't really clear. And just about everyone involved with Holter seems to be motivated solely by greed, which just makes all of them seem one dimensional.
Oddly, in spite of the bad writing, I actually found the acting to be quite enjoyable. I expected to have a hard time buying Rachel Hunter as an academic, but she turns in a credible performance, and I enjoyed watching her. Likewise, Melissa Ordway does a good job of making her character likable, in spite of her early flightiness. Griff Furst does an excellent job of playing the hunky nerd. J.D. Evermore is quite likable as Antoinette's ex, so much so that you wonder why she treats him with such hostility at first. Cleavant Derricks does manage to make his character a little more complex, although the complexity rapidly disappears as greed takes over. And Brad Dourif use his intensity well to show a man who is so driven that he allows his greed to overtake his sensibility.
The effects are rather cheesy, and the movie could have used some scenes of destructions of familiar landmarks (I mean, there must be some in Miami). Likewise, the scenes of those who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time could have been better done. The steam tsunami scene was hard to buy into. And one would assume that the tennis players might have noticed that the ground was getting hot before it opened and spewed forth lava, turning a tennis ball into a deadly hot object (I'll give them points for good CGI showing the hole in the coach's chest, as well originality in the writing of that scene).
All in all, it was about what I would expect from a SyFy original film, which sets the bar pretty low. However, if you're in the right the mood, don't expect too much, and don't take it too seriously, it can be an enjoyable film.
This cautionary tale about oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico starts off with an explosion on an oil rig owned by Holter Energy. The explosion occurs when they drill into magma instead of oil. Unfortunately, the CEO (Brad Dourif) and head of PR (Cleavant Derrick) seem to be more concerned about misleading the public, and hiding an illegal, although very lucrative, drilling operation in downtown Miami. Geology professor, Antoinette Vitrini (Rachel Hunter) becomes concerned when her ex-husband, Brad (J.D. Evermore) informs her that Holter's drilling activities seem to parallel her unpublished research. She has even more to be concerned about when she learns that her assistant, Brandon (Griff Furst), on whom her much younger sister, Emily (Melissa Ordway) has a crush, has sold her research to Holter. When she confronts Holter, she only manages to convince them that they need to kill her to keep her silent. Unfortunately, by this time, volcanic activity has started cropping up around Miami, so Antoinette must race against time, and potential assassins to save not herself and her sister, but all of Miami. Can she and Brandon do it?
I'll give the writers credit for some plausibility in suggesting that the Gulf of Mexico could be the caldera of a supervolcano, even though it's pretty widely accepted that the gulf is the result of continental drift. However, apparently they don't know geography terribly well, since Miami is on the Atlantic side of Florida, and therefore highly unlikely to be affected by vulcanism in the Gulf of Mexico. They really should have set the movie in Tampa. Equally hard to buy was the whole concept of a "steam tsunami" generated by an underwater eruption. Volcanoes erupt underwater all the time. They have to be pretty close to the surface in order to generate any kind of steam plume that could be threatening, and steam plumes don't behave the way they did in this movie. The "steam tsunami" really behaved more like a pyroclastic flow, which might have worked better. And I'm not sure I buy that liquid nitrogen could be used to redirect the flow of lava from an eruption. All in all, not very credible science.
The rest of the writing wasn't terribly credible, either. Antoinette and Emily appear to be very far apart in age, almost too far apart to be sisters, and it might have worked better if they were written as mother and daughter. It's also hard to buy that Antoinette, who is supposedly an experienced professor, wouldn't take better care to make sure that all of her students were accounted for before leaving one behind to get boiled in the swamp. Emily starts off as rather immature, and there's really nothing to indicate the kind of growth her character experiences throughout the movie. Brandon's motives both for selling Antoinette's research, and for his altruism at the end of the movie aren't really clear. And just about everyone involved with Holter seems to be motivated solely by greed, which just makes all of them seem one dimensional.
Oddly, in spite of the bad writing, I actually found the acting to be quite enjoyable. I expected to have a hard time buying Rachel Hunter as an academic, but she turns in a credible performance, and I enjoyed watching her. Likewise, Melissa Ordway does a good job of making her character likable, in spite of her early flightiness. Griff Furst does an excellent job of playing the hunky nerd. J.D. Evermore is quite likable as Antoinette's ex, so much so that you wonder why she treats him with such hostility at first. Cleavant Derricks does manage to make his character a little more complex, although the complexity rapidly disappears as greed takes over. And Brad Dourif use his intensity well to show a man who is so driven that he allows his greed to overtake his sensibility.
The effects are rather cheesy, and the movie could have used some scenes of destructions of familiar landmarks (I mean, there must be some in Miami). Likewise, the scenes of those who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time could have been better done. The steam tsunami scene was hard to buy into. And one would assume that the tennis players might have noticed that the ground was getting hot before it opened and spewed forth lava, turning a tennis ball into a deadly hot object (I'll give them points for good CGI showing the hole in the coach's chest, as well originality in the writing of that scene).
All in all, it was about what I would expect from a SyFy original film, which sets the bar pretty low. However, if you're in the right the mood, don't expect too much, and don't take it too seriously, it can be an enjoyable film.