Joe Versus The Volcano

Name: Joe Versus The Volcano
Released: 1990-3-9
Cast: Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, Lloyd Bridges, Robert Stack, Abe Vigoda

PG
1h 42m
1990

61%

age 12+

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Tom Hanks stars as Joe, a squashed bug of a guy under the heel of a hideous corporation, working in an awful office with bad air, bad light and lousy coffee...Then everything changes in this romantic comedy about courage and a man's soul ... of a man coming back to life on a journey that takes him halfway around the world. To the edge of great delight. To the brink of an exploding volcano.

Director:

John Patrick Shanley

Producer:

Teri Schwartz, Steven Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall

Writer:

John Patrick Shanley

Cast:

Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, Lloyd Bridges, Robert Stack, Abe Vigoda, Dan Hedaya, Barry McGovern, Ossie Davis

Rotten Tomatoes® Score

TOMATOMETER®

61%

Critics Consensus: Joe Versus the Volcano erupts with plenty of screwball energy and thoughtful observations about living to the fullest, but its existential ambition may prove too goofy for some audiences.

Reviews

IONCINEMA.com

Nicholas Bell

A silly fable about love as the end product of seizing the moment and getting out of your comfort zone, it's a scenario as superficial as Shanley's Moonstruck was substantial.

It would be easy for Joe to embrace arch insincerity, to be a fulminating rant in fairytale clothing. Instead, it asserts that it's OK to be afraid, that emotional strength isn't always easy and that you can find what you thought forever lost.

It speaks to the commercial and critical success of Shanley's 1987 hit 'Moonstruck' that he was handed, by a major studio, the resources to make a movie as unapologetically weird as this one.

June 25, 2017

FULL REVIEW

Combustible Celluloid

Jeffrey M. Anderson

Playwright John Patrick Shanley made his movie directing debut with this defiantly strange, totally under-appreciated, yet completely wonderful romantic comedy.

Like Woody Allen's filmmaking evolution played out in reverse: it starts as smart, existential black comedy and ends in broad, zany caricature.

June 25, 2017

FULL REVIEW

Common Sense Media

age 12+

Common Sense Says

Cult classic with smoking, kissing, stereotypes.

What Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that the plot of the 1990 comedy Joe Versus the Volcano rests on the idea that the main character will commit suicide since he has a terminal illness. Despite the morbid premise, the cult classic is mostly upbeat, but an extended typhoon leaves background characters missing and main characters stranded for a while. One of the characters smokes, and there is some drinking, and a bit of profanity ("s--t"). The island inhabitants are also portrayed stereotypically.