Seismologist Clive Dereux (deh-ROO) lives in the New Zealand port city of Auckland with his wife Mere (MEH-ree) and Molly, his late-teens-to-twenty-something daughter from a previous marriage. Constantly monitoring the seismically active area, Clive notices increased magma movement under the harbor and follows its progress until he believes a volcano is about to erupt.
We eventually get to see the volcano erupting, and the special effects are excellent, but that is not what the movie is about. The film instead follows several people going about their lives before, during, and after the disaster.
We see a middle-aged woman having to deal with an impending mastectomy, leaving her two young sons to fend for themselves. We see a teenage couple from Hong Kong--a frightened girl and her rich, selfish boyfriend, who dumps her when she becomes pregnant. We see Clive's own dilemma, weighing the need to evacuate the city against the possibility that he might be wrong. When he appears on a popular radio program hosted by a pair of humorists famous for disparaging their guests, they dismiss Clive as yet another crackpot. Even his colleagues maintain their skepticism, citing his previous miscalculations and accusing him of once again crying wolf.
Clive's dedication to his discovery takes a toll on his personal life, too, especially on his relationship with his wife, an ambitious businesswoman whose job is to attract tourism to Auckland and who sees Clive's prediction as undermining her work, which by itself has made her an alcoholic.
Although not a disaster movie, "Eruption" is a fine production worth seeing. Americans may want to watch the film with subtitles, since the down-under accent is hard to understand at times.
We eventually get to see the volcano erupting, and the special effects are excellent, but that is not what the movie is about. The film instead follows several people going about their lives before, during, and after the disaster.
We see a middle-aged woman having to deal with an impending mastectomy, leaving her two young sons to fend for themselves. We see a teenage couple from Hong Kong--a frightened girl and her rich, selfish boyfriend, who dumps her when she becomes pregnant. We see Clive's own dilemma, weighing the need to evacuate the city against the possibility that he might be wrong. When he appears on a popular radio program hosted by a pair of humorists famous for disparaging their guests, they dismiss Clive as yet another crackpot. Even his colleagues maintain their skepticism, citing his previous miscalculations and accusing him of once again crying wolf.
Clive's dedication to his discovery takes a toll on his personal life, too, especially on his relationship with his wife, an ambitious businesswoman whose job is to attract tourism to Auckland and who sees Clive's prediction as undermining her work, which by itself has made her an alcoholic.
Although not a disaster movie, "Eruption" is a fine production worth seeing. Americans may want to watch the film with subtitles, since the down-under accent is hard to understand at times.