Until “There’s Something About Mary” came along, JVtV held my personal award as the worst movie ever filmed in the entire history of the known universe.
I still say everything good Tom Hanks has been in since this dreadful bogbeast of a movie is simple penance for having accepted this role.
The only thing that could have made this movie worse would be in Chris Elliot had been in it.
Wow. I figured a lot of people wouldn’t care for Joe, but I never thought anyone would actually hate it.
I love this movie. Like others who posted before me, I can’t really tell you why, but I do. I first caught it on HBO years ago, and I was loved it the first time I saw it. I’ve always enjoyed the bizarre, and this movie has a very twisted wit. And I’ve always been fascinated by the director’s repeated theme of the lightning bolt.
I was really hooked when Lloyd Bridges made his pitch to Joe that he should jump into a volcano, and Tom Hanks thought only a moment, shrugged, and said, “Yeah, I’ll do it”. It was just a perfect moment.
I’d say this was one of the stupidest movies I ever saw, except that a number of people in here, people who have more brain cells than fingers and toes, seem to really like it.
I’m a Tom Hanks fan. But he did run into what I consider a bad patch there, with The 'Burbs and Joe vs. the Volcano, both of which sure seemed to hit ‘stupid’ while aiming for ‘funny’.
And after practically falling in love with Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally, Volcano took care of that in a big hurry.
But given that a bunch of y’all seem to like it, I may have to give it another shot.
Don’t bother. If you don’t like it, you don’t like it. It’s all a matter of opinion and opinion is subjective. Somehow, I doubt watching the film full in the knowledge that some people who aren’t morons genuinely enjoy it will improve your opinion of it any. And you knw what? That doesn’t matter.
As I’ve often said to people who get bent out of shape when someone disses their favorite movie/tv series/book etc. as long a you like it, why does it matter what other people think?
By the same token, if someone likes something you don’t, you shouldn’t think any less of them for it, nor should you reexamine the subject at hand just in case you’ve “missed something”. You’ve missed nothing. You didn’t like the movie, some people do. That’s all there is to it.
Just one question: Where did the luggage at the end come from?
Fibber,
I don’t think it’s a bad idea for those of us who hated hated hated this movie to attempt to give it a try again. But we can’t just watch it again like we did before. Just be a waste of a couple of hours, and it’ll ruin the rest of my day. That’s why I asked you people that saw something in the movie to share that something with us and let us appreciate it as well. Is there some hidden symbolism? I heard there is. Is there some hidden meaning? Is it supposed to be funny because it’s supposed to be a ‘B’ movie? Come on… share the wealth!
Okay. I’ll share what the movie says to me, but understand that I do so timidly, and with great trepidation; it’s not an easy thing to define, and it means a lot to me.
In my view, the movie is about bravery, and the courage that a full life demands. It’s a movie that I can watch when I desperately need to make a change, a big change, and I can’t find the courage to do so. It reminds me of something that I’ve learned about the world, but that I sometimes forget: that the world loves people who trust it. If you live without taking risks, your life follows the path of least resistance, and you end up drained and hollow, a shell of what you could be. But if you take risks, crazy risks, the world puts you through hell. At first. For a while, it’s all lunacy and obstacles, but if you show the world that you’re serious, it rises up to meet you, gives you what you need, and gradually you may find yourself in a better place than you ever dreamed possible.
At least, that’s what it says to me.
Joe Vs. The Volcano is one of my all time favorite movies. A commentary on the soul crushing qualities of a typical unexamined modern life, a message to live for the day but NOT be fatalistic about it, the search for identity, music from The Ink Spots, fabulous quality luggage, a BIG damned moon, finding peace, Roman/Jewish/Polynesian islanders that love orange soda, the general silliness of life… poking fun at everything and everyone, the rubber hammerhead shark. :>> What more could you want out of a movie I ask you?
S’ok. My wife hates it.
She likes The 'Burbs.
No accounting for taste. ;>
I’ll try also.
The flick is about a guy who finds out he’s dying, and has to choose what to do now that he has that knowledge.
So what does Joe do? Joe does what we all like to think we’d do: He goes for the big, dramatic, selfless, painful, glorious death instead of waiting for death to come to him. (Recall that he was told he had six months, but Graynamore’s plan had him jumping into the volcano in three weeks; he thought he was giving up five months of life.) Joe also faced the reality of his death and loneliness with only the slightest shiver of weakness (his asking Marshall the limo driver to dinner). This invitation was turned down, and Joe got philosophical about it:
Marshall: “Don’t you have anybody, kid?”
Joe: “No, but I guess there are just some doors you have to go through alone.”
The film is about taking the Big Chance and sticking your head up out of the trench even though it may get shot off. The lightning bolt symbol*, I think, represents the natural human willingness to merge with the masses and live a quiet, obedient, easy life at the expense of taking flak from the general populace.
The great irony of Joe’s learning that he’s going to die is that we are all going to die. Joe is lucky enough to get a vivid, terrifying reminder of that fact when he is still young, with a full life ahead of him.
We’re all in Joe’s boat. We’re all dying. In 200 years, every person now walking the earth will be dead, dead, dead; the point is to give us a wakeup call. One can only imagine what Joe does after the end of the film, which brilliantly ends with:
And they lived happily ever after…
The film clearly aligns itself with fairy tales with the opening title cards: “Once there was a guy named Joe… Who had a very lousy job…” To my mind this is a way of telling us this movie is about a constructed, artificial reality which is going to tell us more about life than a strictly realistic film can, and getting us to accept that fact up front.
OK, must close now; I must go to bed. I hope I’ve explained a bit of why I like the film (I could go on). And I’m sure a bunch of this wasn’t phrased as well as it could be, but folks, I am tired. Good night.
*The symbol appears in the walkway approaching the factory where Joe works at the beginning, in the crack on the wall of Joe’s apartment, in the lightning bolt that sinks the ship, and in the path the islanders follow up the mountain. Possibly elsewhere, but I think that’s all I’ve noticed.
It was Joe’s luggage, which the Waponis had collected for him. After Joe and Patricia were spit out of the Wu. we saw the island of Waponi Wu sink into the ocean. The luggage floated back up to the surface.
Wow. I had no idea it had a cult following and until I read this thread I would never have guessed that anyone liked it.
I consider myself one of the privileged few who is, to borrow a certain phrase, up there in the high country.
Why?
Because I’ve had the privilege of reading the Joe vs. the Volcano script, with the original ending and deleted scenes intact.
As magical as the ending actually filmed in the movie was, the original scripted ending will – dare I say it? – make your heart swell and burst.
Thanks for all the heartfelt responses. I understand better now why some people treasure this movie.
WHAT? The original ending??? OK tracer, you’re not getting out of this thread alive unless you spill your guts.
I had no idea so many other people liked Joe v. Volcano. I thought it was just me. It’s kind of like finding the SDMB all over again.
I think a lot of what I love about it is it really takes it’s time–it lingers on its scenes–like the scene mentioned hugging the old lady and her dog. Like the office from hell scene listening to Dan Hedaya’s endless phone call (“I am not arguing that with you!”) To a different mindset, or one expecting normal Hollywood pacing I suppose this loving lingering could feel slooow and endless.
As I eagerly await tracer’s followup…
I’ve always loved this movie too, while being surrounded by people who just thought it was really, really stupid.
I don’t know if this will make any sense, but at some level I equate what I like about this movie with what I like about “Groundhog’s Day”. They are both rather silly in terms of the story, but with a carpe dium thing happening at the more broad level.
I also don’t think this movie’s for everyone, regardless of intelligence or cinema-savvy. It just has a certain aesthetic that keeps me watching. Oh, and I just loved the Ossie Davis character.
Abe Vigota was a nice surprise, but I agree with those who felt that the whole joke of the tribe and their quirks just didn’t work. But I appreciate the risk, and the many other risks that did work.
I think the script tracer is talking about is at http://www.script-o-rama.com/
Funny how this seems to be a love-it-or-hate-it movie. I loved it. Every character was completely offbeat, and played by excellent actors. The thing I liked most was how all the zany and ridiculous moments contrasted with all the semi-deep conversations about God, death, courage, and the need for quality luggage. 
I just kinda fell in for the whole “I have six months to live, and that fact has set me free” thing from the first time I saw it.
Oh – and the movie script I saw was indeed the same as the one available at http://www.script-o-rama.com/table2.shtml, although an identical script at http://www.mindspring.com/~waponi/script.zip is among the miscellaneous stuff in that “Joe’s World” website in the OP.
I have to say, to each his own and all, but its just downright incorrect to call Joe vs. the Volcano stupid. If you didn’t like it fine, but if you think it was ‘stupid’ then you just didn’t get it. It was in fact very intelligent, subtle and dark. And these things usually do spell box office poison.
And in terms of Tom Hanks films, JvV was immensely superior to the genuinely stupid, treaclely, lame, drek that was shoveled on in Forrest Gump (which won Best freakin’ Picture!)
BTW, how many times do y’all see that “lightning bolt” symbol recur throughout the movie?
I see it five times:[ul][li]The ACHI logo[/li][li]The shape of the footpath leading from the ACHI parking lot into the plant[/li][li]The crack in Joe’s apartment wall (the script originally called for this crack to be in Joe’s cup)[/li][li]The lightning bolt that struck the Tweedledee[/li]The patch of torchlight snaking its way up the side of the Big Wu[/ul]
riserius1 experienced the same thing as me.
I hated JvV the first time I saw it. When I saw it again, I liked it. The third time I loved it.
The only other movie I had this same experienced with was Time Bandits.