Terrible Movie Reviews: Dante's Peak

Dante's Peak is just your typical volcano movie ......... if by that you mean there is NOTHING TYPICAL ABOUT IT! If you want to watch a typical volcano movie, rent "Volcano," in which a random volcano bubbles up out of nowhere right in downtown LA and gushes boiling hot magma past every famous LA landmark you've ever seen.

You thought the "Hollywood Hills" were just hills?? Really? It's like Mt. Vesuvius up in that bitch!

Dante's Peak is much more than that. It's a love story, a story about family sticking together, and a story about listening to scientists when they tell you something bad is going to happen (because as we've seen time and time again in movies, NOBODY LISTENS TO SCIENTISTS NO MATTER HOW WELL-RESEARCHED THEIR CONCLUSIONS. And no matter how good-looking they are. Tragic!)

Omigod sooo dreamy.

DP opens with a couple of important prologues. In one, we see hero Pierce Brosnan getting stuck in a volcanic eruption somewhere far away and in the past. He waits too long to evacuate with his scientist girlfriend, and SPOILER ALERT -- she gets killed. You can practically hear Pierce vowing to never, ever, ever again wait too long to evacuate when there's a deadly volcano involved. No way.

In the other prologue, some teenagers are getting nekkid and ready to bang in a natural hot spring at Dante's Peak, probably because everyone knows it's impossible to get pregnant from doing it in a hot spring (for the same reason it's impossible to get pregnant from doing it in the ocean, the shower, or a hot tub. Because ... the water)

"Look, I'm not a f**king expert, okay? Get an abortion or something, I don't know. Why did you even listen to me in the first place?? Of course you can get pregnant from having sex in a hot tub. I just told you that so you wouldn't make me wear a condom!" -- some teenager to his girlfriend, right now.

Anyway, the hot springs suddenly begin to boil due to geothermal activities or whatever, causing the teenagers' genitals to be boiled off instantly. Which actually DOES prevent pregnancy.

Woohoo!

Only because it kills you, though.

Super bummer.

So now we know some serious shit is going on up at Dante's Peak.

Meanwhile, it cuts back to present time where some boring family is trying to learn to love each other or something. The mom, played by Linda Hamilton is the mayor of the town of Dante's Peak, which is well-known for being adorable and quaint and definitely not filled with volcano-murder. So you can imagine how well-received Pierce Brosnan is when he shows up and is all:

MOTHERF**KING VOLCANO-MURDER.

But he just keeps on measuring shit and tracking seismic whatevers and sounding the alarm until he finally convinces everyone to evacuate the town because DANTE IS GONNA BLOWWWWWWWW! Naturally, just as they start to evacuate, the volcano erupts ... and wouldn't you know it, BEDLAM also erupts. 

errhhh ... indeed.

But obviously things can't go smoothly for the family that is still learning to love each other (oh, also, Pierce Brosnan and Linda Hamilton are falling for each other, if that wasn't obvious due to their opposite genders, mutual singleness, and similar ages). The mayor's idiot children steal a truck and drive it up to Grandma's house, because Grandma is refusing to leave. Why doesn't Grandma want to leave while the volcano explodes like 10 feet from her house? Because she needs to lure her grandchildren into horrible danger, of course! Linda Hamilton and Pierce Brosnan get up to Grandma's house and convince everyone that SERIOUSLY WHAT THE F**K GUYS YOU ARE GOING TO DIE HERE FOR NO F**KING REASON STOP BEING SO GODDAMNED STUPID. And they go to make their escape, which involves crossing a lake. A lake which has ... TURNED TO ACID!!!! Because of the volcano, duh!!!

Wrong acid.

They get a motorboat and start across the lake, until the acid eats through the motor. So then Pierce starts paddling it with his coat over his hand, and the family climbs up onto the bench seats and everything is going fine -- they're totally going to make it to the dock before the acid even touches their feet. 

OR WILL THEY?!?!?!?!?! Grandma has other plans. Showing herself to be twice as dumb as a bag of hammers and only half as useful, she leaps out of the boat to heroically slow them down and drag them the last few feet to the dock they were going to reach anyway with help from Pierce Brosnan's paddling (if she really wanted to help, why didn't she f**king start paddling too? Why didn't ANYONE ELSE start paddling to help them get to the dock faster?!?!). She then continues to walk through the acid lake all the way to the shore, rather than climbing up onto the dock. Nothing like a little completely unnecessary self-sacrifice to bring a family together. It's like that time in The Sound of Music when the Nazis are chasing them so Julie Andrews breaks both her legs and shoots herself in the face for no reason. Way to show those Nazis!

She committed pointless suicide right after this picture was taken. What, you don't remember that part?

Anyway, at this point I was thoroughly disgusted with this movie, so it was little surprise to me when Pierce Brosnan then found himself walking within mere feet of rapidly-flowing lava. This is impossible because: 1) volcanic eruptions that feature predominantly pyroclastic flows -- like the eruption of Dante's Peak -- don't have flowing lava. Pyroclastic flow volcanoes and lava flow volcanoes are completely different. And 2) if lava were actually flowing a few feet away from where you're walking, the air temperature would be so hot that you would boil internally/melt. You CERTAINLY can't play hopscotch over lava rivulets without at least catching your pants on fire.

I mean, you usually can't.

Then he gets trapped in an abandoned and his arm is broken in such a way that the bone sticks out, which is delightfully gruesome. But he finds a transponder beacon thing and turns it on and gets rescued and everyone lives happily ever after. 

I mean, within reason, of course.

People who don't get jokes -- PART 2

Here is the continuation of "People who don't get jokes" ...

4

The person who doesn't realize you were joking and is OFFENDED!

Some people just can't help it. Everything on the internet pisses them off. In this person's mind, everyone is 100% sincere all the time, and it is this person's job; nay, it is their CRUSADE, to defend the dignity of anyone who might theoretically be offended by something someone somewhere said sometime (whoa! try translating that sentence into French, will ya?!).

They'll leap to arms in the defense of children, who shouldn't even be on Facebook to be offended by the joke in the first place:

They'll leap to the defense of other races, especially in instances where absolutely nothing offensive has been said:

And don't even think about mentioning the word "gay" in any context without a visit from the Mysterious and Ineffective Gay Rights Crusader:

Wait ... what?

The "Offended!" is easy to identify because she is often showing up to defend someone other than herself. She's never personally offended; rather, she's offended on behalf of some other group that she thinks OUGHT to be offended by your joke. The joke that she completely missed. Because she's way too busy crusading against injustice to be bothered with things like getting jokes and not making everyone around her miserable.

But this person, however eye-rollingly irritating, has nothing on the last one on our list ...

5

The person who understands perfectly that you were joking, but CHOOSES TO GET OFFENDED ANYWAY

This person is the worst of the worst. The cherry on top of the poo-poo sundae. The one that makes you shake your head so hard you get a migraine.

I'm talking about the people who morally reproach you just like the person in the above examples, but they open with the hated words "Look, I know you're just joking, but ..."

Ugh. No.

It is impossible to follow that phrase with anything that doesn't sound like you're scolding a grade-schooler. It cannot be done.

"Look, I know you're just joking, but even by 'joking' that women are worse than men at math, you are perpetuating a stereotype that many women (and men) are working tirelessly to overcome. To even joke about something like that is to lend legitimacy to the stereotype, allowing society to continue to cling to it."

ZINGGGGGGG!!!!

Also, this comeback is at least as effective, if not MORE effective, when used against a man. Just something to keep in your pocket.

Scolding adults is an activity with a 100% failure rate. Have you ever seen someone respond with something like "hey, you're right, that joke was really insensitive. Thanks for taking the time to point that out to me. I'll make sure to sanitize all my jokes in the future so that no one dead or alive could possibly be offended by them" -- but in a non-sarcastic way? Because I haven't. The response is always ugly.

I would much rather have 100 people who don't get the joke shrieking at me about how cats actually make GREAT pets or how Canada is a WONDERFUL place to live and I shouldn't insult it (duh, I WAS BORN THERE) than listen to one single asshole opine about how they know I'm joking but really think that I ought to reconsider my material, because, you know, Canadians take a lot of flak and you have to be the change you want to see in the world, wouldn't you agree?

ZING AGAIN!!!! I am on FIRE today!

I'll always just bring it back to their sandy vagina. Always.

There are, of course, much more effective ways to let someone know they might want to reel it in a little -- like, for starters, don't laugh at the joke. Maybe boo it. Don't encourage it. Walk out. Roll your eyes and shake your head. Being up-in-arms all the time is bad for your blood pressure.

Also, look at this picture of a panda having a party in utero. Because it's not offensive to anyone, and sometimes inoffensive is the way to go:

This elephant fetus is all partied out, though.

Quick, someone draw a penis on his face! He's passed out. Rules are rules.

Haha! Okay, I'm done.

People who don't get jokes -- Part 1

(this post is divided into two parts, because it started getting really long and I couldn't be bothered to write the whole thing at once)

Everyone misses jokes from time to time. Maybe you're tired and the joke is really subtle, or maybe the joke was a reference to something obscure that you just aren't familiar with. Hell, maybe you just plain weren't paying attention. And that's okay. It even happens to me.

Pretty much this exact thing has happened to me before.

Sometimes, people don't realize you're joking and so they respond with advice or helpful offers. This post is not about those people. My grandma does this, and it's adorable.

Haha. Grandmas, am I right?!

But sometimes, people don't get jokes and then are shitty about it. Because they are stupid, or hateful, or simply unfamiliar with humor/humans. More often the latter.

There are different types of not-getting-jokes, often perpetrated by different types of people. All of them are irritating in some form or other. Here they are, presented in order of how much they make me want to punch them in the face:

1

The person who thinks they're adding to your joke by explaining it

Oh, bless your little heart, you adorable non-joke-getters. I don't even really want to punch you in the face at all, because you're doing your best. It's just unfortunately the case that you and humor aren't really on the same page too often.

To illustrate this, let's revisit Janet Dammit's Facebook status from the other day, but replace Joke Ruiner with Joke Oblivious:

Is this annoying? Of course it is. But the thing to keep in mind is that it's not Joke Oblivious's fault that he's never left the house before. HE'S TRYING! He's failing, but he's trying.

He's nowhere near as bad as ...

2

The person who doesn't get hyperbole

HYPERBOLE.

I love using hyperbole to make jokes. It takes ordinary complaints, twists them around, and makes them sound funny. Sure, it's a lazy way to get a laugh ... but I'm nothing if not lazy. I mean, which sounds funnier? "Turned on the radio but didn't like any of the songs so I turned it off," or "Turned on the radio and each song that came on somehow managed to be the worst song I had ever heard in my life. After two short minutes of listening, I had fashioned a noose from my phone charger and was in the process of attaching it to the dome light when I finally remembered I could just turn the radio off. Which I did. With a sledgehammer."

DUH, THE SECOND ONE IS COMEDY GOLD.

But then there are the unfortunate souls who just don't get hyperbole. They don't fully understand that you're blowing things out of proportion on purpose in order to make a joke. Instead, they think that you are genuinely a Type A Rage-a-holic and you need to seriously chill out before you pop a blood vessel or bring a gun to work or something.

I don't know. Do I seem like the type who would literally cut off a person's nose and feed it to them just because they kept blowing their nose at the lunch table? I'm honestly asking. 

For example, a while ago, I started a thread on a forum wherein I described small everyday inconveniences that made me boil with rage. The first example I used was when I tried to turn the page in a newspaper but the page kept sticking to the page after it, and after two or three failed attempts to turn just one page, I actually had to close the newspaper and take a deep breath before continuing, lest I punch the person next to me square in the face, punt a baby, and then somehow derail the metro train with my mind. 

Others then followed up with similar stories of raging out over things like putting something on a hanger and having it immediately fall off, over and over again; or running over the same bit of fluff with the vacuum a million times even though you could just bend over and pick it up yourself, but the vacuum's JOB IS TO PICK IT UP SO EFF YOU STUPID VACUUM YOU'RE PICKING UP THAT FLUFF IF IT TAKES ALL DAY. The thread turned out hilarious, because we'd all experienced this small daily rage attack over something stupid, and then we'd hyperbolized our stories for the amusement of others.

Because she's going to kill him. Over a toilet seat!!! HA!

But then the killjoys started to show up on the thread. And they had helpful advice for all of us: "omg i can't believe you guys would seriously waste so much time and energy being pissed off about such stupid things. get some perspective -- people deal with way worse shit and don't complain a bit."  Or "wow I can't imagine getting that mad about ANYTHING, much less something so stupid like a newspaper page. chill the f*** out."

And then I sighed, and a little part of me died, because that's the kind of stupid you just can't fix. Somewhere in the world, some smug idiot is feeling superior to me because she has never, not once, set her laptop on fire and used it to beat a kitten to death because Adobe Acrobat needed to be updated for the sixtieth time that month and I DON'T EVEN USE ADOBE ACROBAT.

Don't even try to tell me you haven't thought about setting your laptop on fire and using it to beat a kitten to death when this window pops up, though.

This brings us to the next awful person on the list ...

3

The person who doesn't get sarcasm or satire

(yes, sarcasm and satire are very different, but I think they fool a lot of the same people and lead to a lot of the same reactions so shut up)

It can be hard to identify sarcasm in writing. It can. The dramatic eye-roll that accompanies sarcasm in real life gets lost in the written word, and so it gets a lot of people into trouble -- both writers and readers alike. 

So here's a good rule of thumb when you read something that may be sarcastic/satirical (but you aren't sure): if someone who is normally smart, witty, and on the right side of issues suddenly says something hideously misogynistic, blindingly stupid, or mind-bogglingly offensive, consider the very real possibility that their statement was meant sarcastically or satirically. You know, A JOKE. In fact, even if you DON'T necessarily know if the quote in question is from someone who is generally smart, witty, or enlightened, take a deep breath and think it through before you grab your boxing gloves and light saber. It might be a trap intended to make you look like a jackass.

Like this tweet from actor Rainn Wilson, aka Dwight from The Office. It was a trap that at least one idiot walked right into. 

Which was especially embarrassing for that idiot, because the tweet that directly preceded it was this one:

When someone makes a joke and you stumble blindly into it screaming about how women ARE NOT naturally dumber than men or how DARE you advocate killing innocent babies just because they are ugly or THAT'S NOT HOW YOU SPELL "YOU'RE" YOU DUMBASS, the person who ends up looking like a Grade A moron is you.

My favorite people on Twitter spend much of their time setting traps and waiting for idiots.

Did someone show up to "correct" her by informing her that people in Holland actually put MAYONNAISE on their french fries, not human semen?

F**king of course someone did.

YOU CAN'T FALL FOR IT EVERY TIME, GUYS. YOU JUST CAN'T!

He's right, guys. Weed has killed more teens than guns and power tools combined. #420NO

Part 2 coming up next week, in which I discuss people who not only don't get your joke, but are OFFENDED by it. Because those people are just the best.