"Vulkan" or "Volcano" is a German film from 2009 made for the small screen, so two more years and this one will have its 10th anniversary. It was directed by Uwe Janson and written by Alexander M. Rümelin and despite these two probably not being too famous even here in Germany, they still have a decent collection of films under their belts. The cast, however, includes many names that German film buffs will immediately recognize such as Lauterbach, Kölberlin, Catterfeld, Rohde, Redl, Riemann, Aleardi... and even if some of these have hardly no screen time at all, you will recognize their faces instantly I'm sure. This is basically two films in one as this one consists of two movies of 90 minutes (approximately) each. The title already gives away that this is the story of a volcano in the Eiffel and how disaster strikes when he erupts again after thousands of years. Well.. you can say that German films about environmental catastrophes are nothing special usually and this one here fits the description too. But it is also not as bad as some others. I still believe this could have been kept at 2 hours with cutting out lots of the insignificant stuff, especially from the second 1.5 hours that felt oh so shockingly forgettable given what just happened at the end of the first film. About the first film it needs to be said the way that the writer tried to combine human tragedies like the girl stuck down there or the alleged sexual abuse by Rohde's character was more than clumsy. The writing is one problem, but it also shows somehow that most of the names in here, most of the actors are really more known for charisma and recognition value and not for great range. As a whole, if you love disaster films, then maybe you can check this out and if you don't expect too much, then you won't be disappointed. Everybody else can skip it though. I give it a thumbs-down.
Review of Volcano
