Before he was Forrest Gump, before Saving Private Ryan, Tom Hanks was primarily a comedy star. If you watched Bosom Buddies, you knew that Hanks showed a lot of promise. He may not be considered one of the best actors out there, but he's always cited as one of the most charming and instantly likable. His early comedies, Turner and Hooch and Big, showcased his talent for making you laugh and his likability, but Joe Vs. The Volcano is one of the all time must movie download.
So what makes this one so special? Well for starters, while Big and Turner and Hooch both did an excellent job showcasing Hanks' abilities as a comic actor, Joe Vs. The Volcano is a little more demanding of the actor. Here, he's asked not simply to provide a few funny moments, but to be cast in the shoes of the everyman. At the beginning of the movie, Joe is seen in a situation most of us will find familiar: selling his life away for "three hundred dollars a week".
In the first act, Joe is hating his life, hating his job, working at a repugnant factory (designed by Beetlejuice's Bo Welch, the factory is really a masterpiece of life crushing depression). The factory sits in the middle of a vast muddy expanse of terrain. Joe works under flickering lights which he's sure are giving him cancer and spends the day wishing he had the nerve to talk to the beautiful woman he sits across from (played by Meg Ryan in one of three roles).
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.
Played wonderfully by Lloyd Bridges in his one scene, the industrialist needs Joe's help. He mines on an island called Waponi Woo. Once every hundred years, so the people of the island believe, the volcano will demand a human sacrifice lest it explode and kill everyone. Joe comes to terms with his own mortality here and in doing so comes to terms with life itself.
This scenario gives Joe his life back. From here he becomes more daring, more appreciative of the human experience. Therein lies what makes this movie so special, it's core philosophy: Stop worrying and enjoy life for what it is, because it's really pretty great.
This feeling, this almost boring, understated wisdom also drives the look and feel of the movie. If you haven't seen this movie, you've never seen a movie that looks like this. It seems to take place in some kind of second cousin fantasy reflection of our own world.
Spoiler Alert: The original draft of the script for this film had the industrialist and the doctor getting their comeuppance in the finale. Honestly, it's better that they don't. While they were scamming Joe, the fact is that they gave him his life back. Whether or not this is with intent, the doctor and the industrialist serve in the story as both the villain, and as Joe's savior. - 40731
So what makes this one so special? Well for starters, while Big and Turner and Hooch both did an excellent job showcasing Hanks' abilities as a comic actor, Joe Vs. The Volcano is a little more demanding of the actor. Here, he's asked not simply to provide a few funny moments, but to be cast in the shoes of the everyman. At the beginning of the movie, Joe is seen in a situation most of us will find familiar: selling his life away for "three hundred dollars a week".
In the first act, Joe is hating his life, hating his job, working at a repugnant factory (designed by Beetlejuice's Bo Welch, the factory is really a masterpiece of life crushing depression). The factory sits in the middle of a vast muddy expanse of terrain. Joe works under flickering lights which he's sure are giving him cancer and spends the day wishing he had the nerve to talk to the beautiful woman he sits across from (played by Meg Ryan in one of three roles).
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.
Played wonderfully by Lloyd Bridges in his one scene, the industrialist needs Joe's help. He mines on an island called Waponi Woo. Once every hundred years, so the people of the island believe, the volcano will demand a human sacrifice lest it explode and kill everyone. Joe comes to terms with his own mortality here and in doing so comes to terms with life itself.
This scenario gives Joe his life back. From here he becomes more daring, more appreciative of the human experience. Therein lies what makes this movie so special, it's core philosophy: Stop worrying and enjoy life for what it is, because it's really pretty great.
This feeling, this almost boring, understated wisdom also drives the look and feel of the movie. If you haven't seen this movie, you've never seen a movie that looks like this. It seems to take place in some kind of second cousin fantasy reflection of our own world.
Spoiler Alert: The original draft of the script for this film had the industrialist and the doctor getting their comeuppance in the finale. Honestly, it's better that they don't. While they were scamming Joe, the fact is that they gave him his life back. Whether or not this is with intent, the doctor and the industrialist serve in the story as both the villain, and as Joe's savior. - 40731
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