Other Titles • Joe Versus the Volcano • Joe gegen den Vulkan (1990)
Synopses for Joe Versus the Volcano (1990)
1.
Joe Versus the Volcano is a true early-1990s cult film. This fantasy-comedy was the first pairing of Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks, yet it polarizes viewers like a Blue Velvet or Happiness. As the only directorial effort from John Patrick Shanley (the Oscar-winning writer of Moonstruck), it is something special, and it's hard to resist the film's feather-light heart tugging. Joe Banks is having the life sucked out of him at a dead-end job. Miserable in his gray surroundings with stark fluorescent lighting, Joe dreams of being brave again. A visit to the doctor reveals that he has a "brain cloud." It's fatal, but he'll be fine for a few more months. An eccentric millionaire, Samuel Harvey Graynamore (Lloyd Bridges), hears of Joe's predicament and comes to him with a proposal: The people of the Pacific island of Waponi Woo need a human sacrifice to appease their gods. Why not live like a king for a few weeks, then throw yourself into a volcano? (Graynamore needs a sacrificial victim to offer in exchange for permission to mine the island for a rare mineral.) Joe accepts Graynamore's lavish proposal and on his journey meets three romantic possibilities (all played by Ryan). Joe embraces life; so does the movie. It's packed with smile-inducing supporting performances by Bridges, Ossie Davis, Robert Stack, and Dan Hedaya; playful songs ("Sixteen Tons," "Ol' Man River," Presley's version of "Blue Moon"); and amusing scenes (such as Joe buying luggage). Add the daring, imaginative production design of Bo Welch (Edward Scissorhands), Hanks and Ryan's chemistry, and Georges Delerue's romantic music and you have a film to fall for. --Doug Thomas
2.
When an average man living a thoroughly unfulfilling life is diagnosed with a terminal disease he quits his job and accepts a millionaire's odd offer -- to travel to a south seas island and sacrifice himself to a volcano. In this odd but touching film Meg Ryan plays three roles.
3.
Laughs erupt when Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan fall in love and fall in lava - in Joe Versus the Volcano, a stylish laughquake written and directed by Moonstruck Academy Award® winner John Patrick Shanley.
This first teaming of the peerless stars of Sleepless in Seattle and You've Got Mail follows the follies of a stressed-out guy (Hanks) in a dead-end job who is told he has a terminal "brain cloud." A zany jillionaire (Lloyd Bridges) then makes him an offer that gives him a fleeting taste of the good life. In exchange, he must journey to a Pacific island and leap into a volcano. Is Joe doomed to be the last of the red hot lovers? Not if the forces of imagination, romantic comedy and the charm of Ryan in three roles as the women in Joe's life have their way.
Mooviees.com is not the official site for this film.
All editorial views and opinions expressed here are for entertainment purposes only.
Movie Database
In Theaters
