Volcano (1997)
On this episode of Filmjitsu, Mike is sent straight into the molten heart of 1997’s Volcano—a disaster film that dares to ask: what if Los Angeles were threatened by… lava. Not a volcano, not really—just lava. Everywhere. All the time.
Starring Tommy Lee Jones in full bark-mode as the city’s most exasperated emergency manager, the film follows his heroic efforts to outrun flowing magma, deliver shouted exposition, and maybe—maybe—find time to flirt with Anne Heche while the Earth cracks open beneath them. It’s part action movie, part civic planning seminar, and part geological shrug.
After the review, we’ll count down our Bottom Five Misnamed Movies—films whose titles promise one thing and deliver something… aggressively different. Because if Volcano has taught us anything, it’s that sometimes the biggest disaster is the name on the poster.
Then, we’ll play a round of Kick Two, Pick Two before Mike reveals what cinematic punishment awaits me next—because on this show, the tectonic plates of bad decisions are always shifting.
But first, let’s roll the trailer for a movie that proves you don’t actually need a volcano to make a volcano movie—you just need a lot of lava and even more yelling—1997’s Volcano.
Now, the reason I picked Volcano is pretty simple—we’ve been circling a certain kind of movie for a while now without actually pulling the trigger on it.
It’s been a long time since we’ve watched something big, loud, and unapologetically dumb. And more specifically, it’s been a long time since we’ve tackled a full-blown disaster movie—a genre that used to be everywhere, and somehow hasn’t made its way into our crosshairs nearly enough.
Because this is a genre with a playbook. You’ve got the overly dramatic performances, the heroic sacrifice that’s treated like it should win an Oscar, the complete and total abandonment of anything resembling real science, and of course, those forced little romantic subplots that show up right when the city is actively being destroyed.
But maybe the most fascinating thing about disaster movies—and the thing I was most interested in revisiting—is how they structure themselves around all these different characters. We’re constantly cutting between storylines, meeting new people, following their individual struggles… all building toward this idea that it’s all going to come together in some meaningful, satisfying way.
And more often than not… it really doesn’t.
So I wanted to go back to one of these and ask: does Volcano actually make good on any of that? Does it justify all the chaos, all the characters, all the spectacle… or is it just a lot of lava and a lot of yelling pretending to be something bigger than it is?
Mike… when you sat down with Volcano, did you find a disaster movie worth revisiting—or just a genre going through the motions?
Bottom Five Misnamed Movies
Alright, so for the Bottom Five this week, I wanted to step a little outside the movie itself and into something I always find just as fascinating—the decisions around the movie. The marketing, the packaging, the moment where someone, somewhere, has to decide: what are we calling this thing?
Because titles matter. They’re the first pitch, the first impression, the thing that’s supposed to tell you—instantly—what kind of experience you’re about to have. And when they work, they really work. They’re iconic, they’re sticky, they sell the movie before you’ve seen a single frame.
And then… there are the other ones.
The ones that feel like they were decided in a meeting no one wanted to be in. The ones that promise one movie and deliver something completely different. The ones that, even after you’ve seen the film, you’re still sitting there thinking, why is it called that?
Which brings us, of course, to Volcano—a movie that is, for the most part, about lava. Just lava. Flowing through Los Angeles like the world’s angriest sidewalk renovation. No towering mountain, no eruption in the traditional sense.
So that got me thinking: what are the movies that missed the mark the hardest when it comes to their names? Not bad titles or even bad movies, necessarily—but wrong titles. Misleading, confusing, or just out of sync with the movie they’re attached to.
Because sometimes the biggest problem with a movie isn’t what’s on screen… it’s what they decided to call it.
So, Mike, let’s get into it, what’s your rationale and what is your bottom five?
5. Don’t Move (2024)
A title that completely misunderstands its own premise. Because in Don’t Move, the entire engine of the movie is that the protagonist desperately wants to move… but physically can’t. After being injected by a serial killer with a paralytic agent, she spends the film fighting against her own body just to survive.
So the title isn’t just misleading—it’s backwards. This isn’t a story about restraint or discipline; it’s about the horror of being trapped inside yourself. If anything, the movie should be called Move, Please Move.
Produced by Sam Raimi, the film does tap into that early Raimi sensibility—lean, nasty, high-concept tension wrung out of a simple idea. And to its credit, it works. Which somehow makes the title even more frustrating, because the movie understands its hook perfectly… even if the name doesn’t.
4. Longlegs (2024)
This sounds like a creature feature—or at the very least, a defining physical trait that actually matters. And to be fair, the movie does technically justify it… once.
At one point, Nicolas Cage—in what may be his most fully unhinged performance to date—leans down to a kidnapped child and says, “I put on my long legs today,” implying he’s tall and has to bend to meet her eyeline. That’s it. That’s the connection.
Beyond that, the title has almost nothing to do with the story, the character, or the central mystery. And that’s not an accident—director Osgood Perkins has said he chose it purely because it felt like a grimy, ‘70s-style title, which absolutely tracks with the film’s tone. The problem is, for anyone actually watching it, the title becomes a distraction—something you keep trying to decode instead of just letting the movie work.
Which is a shame, because the film itself is effective—moody, unsettling, and built around Cage’s bizarre, androgynous presence. Honestly, if you leaned into that angle, you could’ve had something like Sam Can Hunt—like a demented Dick-and-Jane reader. Or just go full Saturday Night Live and call it It’s Pat: The Serial Killer Years—at least then we’d know what kind of unsettling we’re signing up for.
3. Fall (2022)
Technically accurate, but wildly misleading. Yes, there is a fall—but the entire movie is about doing everything possible to avoid that outcome.
Directed by Scott Mann, Fall became a modest sleeper hit thanks to its vertigo-inducing premise—two women stranded atop a 2,000-foot radio tower—and its clever blend of practical locations and digital effects to create that stomach-dropping sense of height. It’s lean, it’s tense, and it absolutely works… which makes the title all the more frustrating.
Because the tension isn’t in the fall—it’s in the not falling. Calling the movie Fall is like naming Jaws “Swimming.” If anything, this should be Don’t Fall, which at least reflects the entire objective of the film. Or, if you want to lean into the melodrama and the film’s… let’s say less successful subplot, you could go with I Can See My Truth From Here—capturing the hidden secret between the two ladies and, yeah, you know that they can “See Their Houses From There.”
Heights might work too. Clean. Honest. No spoilers.
Regardless of title, this is absolutely a recommended watch—especially if you enjoy a little vertigo with your thrills. Or maybe a little Verti-uh-oh.
2. Marriage Story (2019)
This is not a marriage story. This is a divorce story—one of the most emotionally brutal ones ever put on screen.
Written and directed by Noah Baumbach and starring Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver, the film was a major awards player, earning six Oscar nominations and winning Best Supporting Actress for Laura Dern. It’s raw, intimate, and painfully specific—but the title suggests something almost nostalgic or reflective, when in reality it’s about the legal, emotional, and psychological unraveling of a relationship. Calling this Marriage Story is like calling Kramer vs. Kramer “Date Night.”
And to be clear, this isn’t a knock on the film—quite the opposite. I think this is one of the best-acted, most emotionally powerful movies I’ve ever seen. Driver, who I genuinely believe is one of the best actors working today, is incredible here, and Johansson—freed from the constraints of franchise filmmaking—shows a level of depth and control that’s just flat-out remarkable.
There’s a scene—you know the one—that builds and builds until it absolutely detonates, and it’s so effective that I’ve literally bookmarked it in my JayFlix library and revisit it every couple of months just to remind myself what great writing, directing, and acting can do. Yes, it’s the one that became that four-panel meme with Driver ending on the wall punch—but stripped of context, that meme doesn’t even begin to capture how devastating the full scene really is.
1. Gravity (2013)
Gravity isn’t the subject—it’s barely even the problem.
Directed by Alfonso Cuarón, one of the most precise and visually inventive directors working today, Gravity is a technical marvel—winning 7 Academy Awards, including Best Director, and grossing over $700 million worldwide. Its groundbreaking long takes and immersive camerawork create one of the most convincing depictions of space ever put on screen.
But here’s the issue: gravity isn’t what’s trying to kill anyone in this movie.
The real threats are high-velocity debris, the endless vacuum of space, the lack of oxygen, and the terrifying reality that once something starts moving up there, it never stops. If anything, the problem is the absence of gravity—not its presence. The film is about momentum, isolation, and the cold indifference of space… not the force pulling things downward.
Now, you could argue that “gravity” is meant metaphorically—that Sandra Bullock’s character is emotionally anchored by the loss of her daughter, that this tragedy is the “gravity” pulling her back toward life, toward survival. And sure… that’s there, I guess.
But that feels like a reach. A post-hoc justification for a title that doesn’t really connect to what we’re actually watching for 90 minutes.
So calling it Gravity feels like a fundamental misread of its own premise. It’s like calling The Revenant “Cold” or Cast Away “Water”—those elements exist, but they’re not what’s driving the story. They’re just part of the environment.
And that’s what makes it so strange—because this is Cuarón, a filmmaker who is usually flawless in how he constructs every detail of his work. And here, he lands on a title that doesn’t just undersell the movie—it points you in the wrong direction entirely.
If anything, this is Momentum, or Airless, or Don’t Let Go—something that actually reflects the danger at play.
Still, misnamed or not, this is one of the most immersive theatrical experiences of the last 20 years. It’s a masterpiece, but it’s not about gravity—it’s about everything that happens when gravity isn’t there.