Joe Versus the Volcano

Joe Versus the Volcano

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

Genre: Comedy, Romance
Production: Warner Home Video
  1 nomination.
 
IMDB:
5.7
Metacritic:
45
Rotten Tomatoes:
62%
PG
Year:
1990
102
10,037 Views
An Average Joe. An Adventurous Comedy.
A story of love, lava and burning desire.

Joe:
You look terrible, Mr. Waturi. You look like a bag of sh*t stuffed in a cheap suit. Not that anyone could look good under these zombie lights. I, I, I, I can feel them sucking the juice out of my eyeball. Suck, suck, suck, SUCK... [makes a sucking noise] For 300 bucks a week, that's the news. For 300 bucks a week, I've lived in this sink, this used rubber.

Mr. Waturi:
You watch it, mister! There's a woman here!

Joe:
Don't you think I know that, Frank? Don't you think I am aware there is a woman here? I can smell her, like, like a flower. I can taste her, like sugar on my tongue. When I'm 20 feet away I can hear the fabric of her dress when she moves in her chair. Not that I've done anything about it. I've gone all day, every day, not doing, not saying, not taking the chance for 300 bucks a week, and Frank, the coffee stinks, it's like arsenic. The lights give me a headache. If the lights don't give you a headache, you must be dead; let's arrange the funeral.

Mr. Waturi:
You better get outta here right now! I'm telling you!

Joe:
You're telling me nothing. And why, I ask myself, why have I put up with you? I can't imagine, but now I know. Fear. Yellow freakin' fear. I've been too chicken sh*t afraid to live my life so I sold it to you for 300 freakin' dollars a week! You're lucky I don't kill you! You're lucky I don't rip your freakin' throat out! But I'm not going to! And maybe you're not so lucky at that. 'Cause I'm gonna leave you here, Mr. Wahoo Waturi, and what could be worse than that?

Joe:
Are you used to this?

Patricia:
What?

Joe:
The ocean, the stars.

Patricia:
You never get used to it. Why do you think I want this boat? All I want to do is sail away.

Joe:
Where would you go

Patricia:
Away from the things of man.

Joe:
Do you believe in God?

Patricia:
I believe in myself.

Joe:
What does that mean?

Patricia:
I have confidence in myself.

Joe:
I've done a lot of soul searching lately. I've been asking myself some tough questions. You know what I've found out?

Patricia:
What?

Joe:
I have no interest in myself. I think about myself, I get bored out of my mind.

Patricia:
What does interest you?

Joe:
I don't know. Courage. Courage interests me.

Patricia:
So you're going to spend the rest of your life on a tiny island in the South Pacific?

Joe:
Well, up till now I've lived on a tiny island called Staten Island, and I've commuted to a job in a shut up room with pumped in air, no sunshine, despicable people, and now that I've got some distance from that situation, that seems pretty unbelievable. Your life seems unbelievable to me. All this like life, seems unbelievable to me. Somewhat. At this moment.

Patricia:
My father says almost the whole world's asleep. Everybody you know, everybody you see, everybody you talk to. He says only a few people are awake. And they live in a state of constant, total amazement.

[they nearly kiss]

Joe:
I have less than six months to live. The Waponis believe they need a human sacrifice or their island's going to sink into the ocean. They have a mineral your father wants. He's hired me to jump in their volcano.

Patricia:
What?

Joe:
You're not going to make me say that again, are you?

Patricia:
No.

Joe:
Aren't you going to say anything?

Patricia:
I don't know what to say. You tell me you're dying, you tell me you're jumping into a volcano, my mind is a blank.


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