JOE VERSUS THE VOLCANO. Directed and written by John Patrick Shanley; produced by Teri Schwartz for Warner Bros. Starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. Rated PG.
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The awkward title should tip you off—this is a very strange movie.
A lot like a cartoon, everything about it is exaggerated—characters, plot, even sets. It's a lot like a fable, too, with a moral message that's sometimes laid on a trifle too thick.
But when all is said and done, it's not really like anything else at all.
A brief description of the plot will give you a better idea of what I mean.
Joe (Hanks) is what amounts to a stock clerk at American Panascope, a truly hellish company that makes surgical instruments. His boss (Dan Hedaya) would have no trouble getting a job down under as a demon, second-class. DeDe (Ryan, in the first of three roles she plays) is his secretary and seems nice enough, if also somewhat warped by her surroundings.
A perpetual hypochondriac, Joe goes to the doctor, again, and this time gets the bad news he's always been expecting—he has only months to live.
It would be bad news for anyone else, but for Joe, it's liberation. He quits his job only to be re-hired almost immediately by billionaire Graynamore (Lloyd Bridges).
His new job? Sail to the South Pacific and jump into a volcano to appease a fire god threatening to blow up an island where Graynamore has some mining interests.
Now tell me—does that sound even remotely like the storyline for any movie you've ever seen before?
The most original things in the movie, though, are intangibles like the surreal production design and the pleasantly unreal feeling that pervades the whole enterprise.
In these days of movie-making by cloning, it's nothing short of astonishing to see a picture so off-the-wall. In fact, it might be a bit too weird for some moviegoers.
But despite its oddities, most people will like it. Hanks and Ryan give such good performances that it's a definite must-see for their fans. And since it's hard to imagine anyone really disliking both of these talented and appealing actors, everybody ought to like Joe, at least a little bit.
March 28, 1990