Check Out The Film Joe Versus The Volcano
Tom Hanks always showed promise, even back when he was in the short lived sitcom, Bosom Buddies. He was able to spin off of that success to become one of the most sought after actors in Hollywood. Many critics will be quick to point out: His acting chops may not be on par with DeNiro or Hoffman, but what he lacks in method, he more than makes up for with sheer charisma and likability. It’s this likability that led him to a blossoming comedy career with Big and Turner and Hooch, and it’s a key ingredient to what makes Joe Vs the Volcano one of the best movies to download.
So, what makes this one so much better than his other early nineties comedies? Well to start off with, those other comedies provided big laughs and a charming leading man, but Joe vs the Volcano provides something more. Not only is this movie funny, weird and unpredictable, it also contains the meaning of life. No joke.
The film starts off with Joe slaving away at a miserable, miserable job. He works in a dismal factory, a disgusting, repugnant block of concrete in the middle of a field of mud, where flickering fluorescent lights, he believes, are giving him cancer. Bo Welch, the set designer for Beetlejuice, created this ugly masterpiece of depression as well as the look of the rest of the film.
Joe, a serious hypochondriac, takes a trip to the doctor’s office where he learns that he has a “Brain Cloud”. A fatal condition. From here he meets the industrialist played by Lloyd Bridges, who offers him a chance to live like a king for several months, in exchange for his suicide by jumping into a volcano.
The industrialist, played wonderfully in his one scene by Lloyd Bridges, will finance Joe’s trip and all the luxuries he can indulge in if he’ll go to the Waponi Woo and jump into a volcano. The industrialist uses this island for mining, but the people of the island are fearful of the volcano and believe that it needs a human sacrifice every hundred years lest it blow up and kill them all. The chief, finding nobody among his own cowardly people to do the deed, needs Joe to do it.
Joe is made to fully appreciate what a gift life is. By accepting his death, by having nothing to lose, Joe is able to do anything he wants in life, including jumping into a volcano. This is where the movie’s philosophy lies, this is the meaning of life: Enjoy it for what it is. Don’t worry about the afterlife, don’t worry about mortality or bills or rent, don’t let the troubles of the world get you down, just appreciate every moment for what it is.
The look of the film is similarly wonderful. Bo Welch really sends it out of the park on this one. The film takes place in a sort of fantasy mirror universe of our own. Taking cues equally from Dali and Andy Warhol, the film looks like a living dream.
Interestingly, the original draft of the script (SPOILER ALERT) had the industrialist and the doctor getting their just deserts at the end of the film. It’s probably better that that ending was nixed, as these two characters can almost be seen in a heroic light. While their scheme was dastardly, the fact is that they serve not only as the villains of the film, but as Joe’s saviors as well.
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