Miami Magma (2011)

Load of rubbish!!

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

The previous reviewers have pretty well summarized this SyFy Channel "epic". It's a by-the-numbers--for the SyFy Channel, anyway--story about a disaster threatening a large city and caused in part by the actions of a corporation that will do anything to increase its profits. It's better than some SyFy Channel movies, and worse than others--if you know anything about the kinds of movies SyFy makes, you'll know what I mean--and about the only REAL reason to watch it is a poolside bikini contest that's interrupted by a volcano turning Miami into a giant steambath. SyFy seemed to have put more money into hiring scads of incredibly hot bikini models--and there are, thankfully, a LOT of them--for this scene than it did for the entire special effects budget, for which they have earned my undying gratitude. Otherwise, there's not really much of a reason to watch this.

I have to wonder, did you people rating this movie even bother watching it first? This movie has EVERYTHING! It has absolutely EVERYTHING that a movie needs to be successful. Volcano, check. Super volcano, check. Super volcano hidden under a major city, check. Evil business mogul who demands to drill for oil directly into the super volcano underneath the major city, check. Gigantic disaster, check. Hero fighting the good fight against evil businessman and super-lava (Cleavant Derricks in one of his finest roles), check.Some people just aren't satisfied by a movie no matter how good it is... I sincerely feel sorry for you!

We decided to watch this because my 10-year-old likes volcanoes. "But there're no volcanoes in it," he complained, with just a little exaggeration. Mostly this is about the machinations of conscience-less, greedy oil drillers. If that's your idea of a compelling plot line, this movie is for you. The storyline is improbable: A long-dormant volcano under Miami is reawakened by venal drilling overhead. What this has to do with an off-shore oil rig that explodes spectacularly in the opening sequence is unclear. Why would Brad Dourif, an actor with a fine acting pedigree extending back to "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," appear in claptrap like this? He gets killed off within the first 30 minutes.New Zealand-born Rachel Hunter, once a supermodel, is of normal body proportions here, in the role of a humorless volcanologist who has an American sister (Melissa Ordway). Go figger. And Cleavant Derricks is the (sometimes very badly written) villain. Imagine one's dying words being, "You bitches!" Well, his are. This film does offer a few good special effects. Ever wonder what it would be like to have liquid nitrogen thrown all over you? You'll find out here. How 'bout what Miami would look like cloaked in lava? Or the havoc a "steam tsunami" would wreak on a beach bikini contest? Some of these scenarios impress, but aren't sufficient to redeem this magma-ficent flop.

This was a very fun movie to watch, full of action. Dumb science, but not bad. Certainly it's not awful science, more like "implausible." Even if one supposed there might be a volcano in Miami, the special effects were not in accordance with what one might expect a true volcano to do. Also, I found the final scene of the movie startling. If it's what I think it was, then it was the final, most implausible special effect of all. On the other hand, if it were plausible, then it wouldn't be much of a movie, more like a docudrama perhaps. The characters were what made the movie interesting, though even there, it seemed that people were acting in contradiction. One minute, a character is acting moral and wants to do the right thing, the next, they are willing to throw everything they said out the window for a cut of the proceeds. Another character has a history of being dishonest, then suddenly they have a conscience. A young woman is flaunting herself, then suddenly she becomes mature. I guess it was the inconsistencies that amused me more than anything.Just one last comment: This movie played under the name "Swamp Volcano" on the SyFy Channel but it is the same movie.