I was quite surprised at how much I liked this movie. I'm a fan of the genre, which probably makes me a more harsh critic than I would be of other movies, and I didn't expect much, particularly not given the lame title.The movie feels a lot more like a documentary than a drama. The science is respectable - not too techy, not too simple - and the acting is low-key and natural. I found myself disappointed that it was only about 1.5 hours long.Don't expect Academy Award-quality, but if you like cliffhanger disaster movies, this one is a nice little surprise.

By my armchair scientific knowledge, Supervolcano is well based on the geology of Yellowstone (which *is* a supervolcano). This docu-drama's strength is the telling of the prelude, occurrence, and consequences of the super-eruption which has already happened three times at Yellowstone and will again someday. Geologists wrestle over what they know and what they don't. Scientists, reporters, and government wrestle with the politics and ethics of what to tell the public. FEMA wrestles with how to prepare for the eruption, how to aid the millions affected by it, and realizing how little they can do. The world slowly realizes that they, not just the U.S., are affected.The acting, by largely unknown actors, is solid. Nothing special, but this isn't a character development movie. The story is solid. Plot holes are few, and the only one that affects the science is minor. Production values are BBC-solid. Story, dialogue, and videography are restrained; the movie is blessedly free of Hollywood's gratuitous romance and melodrama, mindless heroism, and closeups of beautiful bodies. Good musical score. Special effects are low-budget but mostly effective, with one glaring exception: frequent intercut images, a fraction of a second each, accompanied by a loud electrical sizzle-snap. Most are negative (color-reversed) versions of what we just saw or are about to see. The intercuts are meant to heighten the tension, and they do, but only a handful of the hundreds of them aid the story. The rest are cheap yanks on our startle response.I have two other small beefs. First, the movie uses news clips of recovery from actual volcanic eruptions, showing places and people that clearly aren't in North America. Those briefly, jarringly broke my suspension of disbelief. Second, an aerial view of what was supposed to be post-eruption Yellowstone was an ordinary scene of mountain country. What could have been a potent visual was unconvincing and disappointing.Supervolcano focuses on the human consequences of the super-eruption, on how helpless we are against the power of nature, and does so grippingly. I would have liked more of the perspective -- which is mentioned only in passing -- that we are a minuscule part of the drama of creation, and that there is grandeur even in our own extinction. Still, Supervolcano is a powerful reminder to be humble about our place in the universe, a reminder we need regularly.Highly recommended.

I came upon this today while clicking through the channels and was amazed how good it was.A volcano is a difficult subject for a film because there's not going to be a scene where the hero defeats it. The best that he can hope for is to outrun it (Pierce Brosnan in DANTE'S PEAK) or find a way to divert the lava flow (Tommy Lee Jones in VOLCANO). But that doesn't give the audience the same satisfaction as seeing Ripley in the original ALIEN launch the monster into the vacuum of space.Based on the program that came on after the movie, this is an all too possible event. The last time it blew its top was some 600,000 years ago. It may be another 600,000 or it could be tomorrow.The movie isn't meant to be fun. It's a very sober examination of the fact that despite all our technology we stand helpless against Nature's wrath.It helps that the Canadian cast was totally unfamiliar to me. There weren't any actors that I could figure always/never get killed off in this.No heroes. No bad guys. Just people trying to muddle through the best they can.It reminded me of an excellent movie called THREADS that dealt with the threat of nuclear war in a mature, hysteria free manner.Way to go, Discovery Channel.

This was hyped up with a massive amount of trailers and one of the things I dislike about a lot of programmes these days is the hype they receive . I also noticed it was one of those very multinational productions like THE GRID so I was expecting a very mid Atlantic flavour full of bed hopping , mawkishness , action scenes , really poor dialogue and of course a happy ending but what I got was something unexpected The first episode is a bizarre mix involving soap opera , disaster movie build up and an episode of the BBC science show HORIZON . The characters are introduced and some of them are interviewed for camera . Instantly I thought this was a mistake since the interviews are conducted in the past even ie if they are interviewed then we know they'll be seeing the final credits and won't die . However when the supervolcano erupts setting off a chain reaction of other volcanic eruptions it becomes clear that the interviewees are out of the line of fire and the ones in danger haven't been interviewed hence they might die . So much for my conclusion that we'll be having an optimistic ending . What does become clear is that the human race may suffer the fate of the dinosaurs ! SUPERVOLCANO is gripping , informative and downbeat . It's maybe not as shocking as the BBC docudrama THREADS but in its own way it's just as effective . It's not flawless , for example the special effects look a little too like CGI in some scenes and there's bits that just don't ring true like people in Britain stocking up on food and water in the face of a coming disaster , sorry but we don't do that in this country - We just sit back in an apathetic manner in front the television with a cup of tea in our hands . Brits give fatalism a bad name . If I have one serious problem then it's the fact the narrative is too short . We find out that the ash in the atmosphere has blocked out much of the suns light meaning we have a " Nuclear winter " effect whereby even at the height of Summer the Earth's temperature will cool leading to all sorts of geographical disasters like famine in the third world where millions will die but this is only referred to in passing while another effect - The collapse of the American economy and all that entails - is not mentioned at all . But despite the flaws this is a pretty good speculative drama simply because iit's all too credible