The Misunderstood: Joe Versus the Volcano

joe vs the volcano

It's hard to find a truly unique story, and not just recently. People have been weaving and recombining the same tales since we sat around the first fires tracing shapes in the constellations. It's pretty sad, then, when a one-of-a-kind (or at least first-of-its-kind) story gets booed off the stage. Such is the case with a flop called Joe Versus the Volcano.

Released in 1990, JVtV is the first movie to pair Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks. From a critical standpoint, each successive vehicle for those two are increasingly dire. Sleepless in Seattle is a middling date movie rescued by its unusual premise, while You've Got Mail is a bland remake without merit and anchored by a hopelessly topical gimmick. Joe was the one movie carried by Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks that actually used the actors properly.

The above sentiment really is the crux of my love for Joe Versus the Volcano. Tom Hanks has spent the past fifteen or so years chasing "meh" romantic comedies and prestige pictures. While he does well enough in heavy roles like his turn in Saving Private Ryan, Hanks's real strength is in downplayed living cartoons like The Money Pit. That's why nobody on Earth was better suited to play Joe Banks. As for Meg Ryan, her career took a strange trajectory in the 90's that misused her character actor talents on America's Sweetheart projects. It's infinitely more entertaining to watch her jump between three drastically different roles in Joe than it is to see her playing the ugly American in French Kiss.

Joe Versus the Volcano is the story of a man literally made sick by his soul-crushing job and inescapable loneliness. After the greatest quitting scene in comedy history, Joe's boss gives him the opportunity to go out with a bang by sacrificing himself at the volcano of a remote island that has some business importance to the company. Thus begins a strange and beautiful journey that is at once epic and stage-level clever. The story is peppered with fun, weird characters, including a Yiddish-speaking islander played by Abe Vigoda and even an unrecognizably made-up Nathan Lane in one of his first film roles.

That cleverness was lost on audiences, though. Joe Versus the Volcano limped out of theaters and was relegated to the designation of a "lesser Tom Hanks film". That sort of thing tends to happen with strange, layered movies. Joe is filled with tiny touches, like the recurring lightning bolt image and allegorical set pieces. Given multiple viewings or a film class dissection, this movie might be appreciated for how lovingly it was constructed.

As it stands, Joe Versus the Volcano has a minor cult following and it still spends the occasional weekend on cable TV, but it really ought to be considered one of the great comedies of its time. Few films have such quiet ingenuity and "give 'em a show" attitude. At first its smallness and rinky-dink construction can be off-putting, but I still can't think of a single movie that feels like Joe. That alone elevates it beyond its commercial failure, but it also happens to be damn funny.