Volcano (1997) - 45 mistakes

Continuity: When the female nurse is in her 4x4 vehicle, she looks in her mirror and sees two fire trucks. In the far away shot the first fire engine overtakes her, then when it cuts back to her it's overtaking her again.

Continuity: When the train boss sacrifices himself by throwing the train driver over the lava flow, he only just manages to throw him past the flow. But in the following shots where it shows the other rescuers view of the lava flowing toward them, the position of them and the lava coming toward them mean they should be burnt by now.

Continuity: Just before the big earthquake, the subway train shown arriving at the Westlake/MacArthur Park station has the number 518 on the front door, however, the train that gets damaged during the earthquake has the number 526 on it.

Continuity: When Amy Barnes and Rachel are in the tunnel trying to find out what happened, Rachel falls in the crack of the tunnel, and Amy is thrown back. When it cuts to a different view, Amy Barnes falls or is thrown backwards, yet in the following shot when her hand slips from Rachel's, she falls back again. Also, when she is thrown back by the force, she is thrown back some distance, yet when the smoke subsides she is only about 1 or 2 feet from the crack in the tunnel.

Continuity: When Roark, Anne Heche and the other woman are in MacArthur Park, Roark walks away and Anne Heche is quite a few feet away from the other woman, but then she is right next to her without barely even moving. Also, when Anne Heche puts her hand on the woman's neck, in the following shot she is taking her hand away, and in the next shot she is taking her hand away again.

Continuity: When Anne Heche is going to shake hands with Roark, she is allready in front of Stan, yet in the following shot she moves in front of him again.

Continuity: At the start, when Tommy Lee Jones puts the pan on the table, the distance between the milk and the bowl changes from being right next to each other to further apart. Also, the rug is not in line with the edge of the kitchen table, yet when the dog goes to lick up the egg, it is.

Continuity: When Dr. Jaye Calder is attending to the injured fireman on the road, Roark comes up and in one particular shot is near the fireman's side. In the following shot he is at the fireman's head, not at his side.

Continuity: At the end of the film, when Tommy Lee Jones steps out of the rubble with his daughter and the young boy, in one shot Tommy Lee Jones puts his hand around his daughter, in the following shot about 2 seconds later he puts his hand around her again.

Continuity: At the end when Emmit tells Roarke, "I could get used to this", he puts the cell phone up to his ear twice.

Continuity: Between the shots when Tommy Lee Jones is talking to his ex-wife, we can see the cord from his headset changing positions from left of the boom-microphone to right and back again.

Other: Just before the lava begins to flow, the glass in a building shatters and falls on Roark and the doctor but neither suffer so much as a cut.

Visible crew/equipment: When the train pulls into the station there is a shot of the train and there is a very clear reflection of a cameraman. This is not when they are filming a documentary about trains using the red line.

Continuity: When Roark has been seen looking for a radio, there is a bloke behind Emmit who has a headset on. The camera does an instant cut to the front and the headset has gone.

Revealing: When the woman dies during the major earthquake, the steam goes back into the hole perfectly. The steam's movement, which is unnatural, shows that they blew steam out of the crack and then ran the shot backwards.

Continuity: Just after Amy gets out of the drain, her fire suit is off her one shoulder and halfway between her shoulder and elbow. The camera cuts and it is back on her shoulder up to her neck instantly.

Other: At the end it starts to rain and everyone is covered in ash, soot, dust etc. However, after a few seconds of rain, all the ash, dust and soot have vanished off Roark, Kelly and Amy instantly.

Continuity: The severity of Kelly's wound to the face constantly changes. Some shots it's extremely red and raw, others it's only slightly red.

Continuity: Roark's car has the windscreen smashed and cracked by the volcanic ash. In some shots, mainly a distant shot of it being driven, there are no cracks in the windscreen.

Plot hole: When they are trying to find a way to stop the lava from going in to the museum, Tommy Lee Jones has an idea to push a bus up against the museum to divert the lava. The plan works but the lava does not melt the bus like it melted Tommy Lee Jones' car or the fire truck. Even though the bus melts later in the movie, it doesn't melt it instantly like it did with the fire truck.

Other: Roark burns his hand on a hot frying pan and drops it to the floor. The dog then immediately wanders in to eat the spilled food. The pan should still be scorching hot after a short time, and yet the dog licks it.

Revealing: When the fireman goes to enter the fire truck that is on its side to rescue his friend, for whatever reason, the filmmakers sped up the film during his entry into the truck, it looks really out of place.

Continuity: Kelly is in the hospital and she has an injury on her face. In the final scene of the movie where they are standing out in the rain, the injury is gone.

Continuity: The building that the doctor visits to meet her husband isn't particularly tall, yet when they both are looking out from the view, their viewpoint is significantly higher than what was shown outside.

Revealing: When the fire truck gets hit by a lava ball and flips over, you can see two smoke plumes coming out the bottom of the truck. These are the remains of the two cannons used to flip the truck over.

Continuity: Before they build the lava dam, when Mike flips over a map on the hood of a truck to draw on it the map is clear of ash. In the next shot from across the hood the map is covered with ash. The next close up it is ash free again.

Continuity: When the lava first comes out of the Tar Pits near the beginning, two cars drive past it. In the next shot a bit further away, one of the cars on the left is now a 4x4, which was not in the previous shot.

Continuity: When Don Cheadle walks into the OEM in the morning just after the blackout, there is a guy with a headset holding his hand on it in one shot, but just holding the end of it with his fingertips in the next shot.

Continuity: At the beginning, when Stan and his other colleagues are standing in front of a TV and laptop outside, in one shot Stan's hands are on the laptop and in the following shot they are by his side.

Continuity: Near the end, when the big black guy shake hands with the cop, the blonde haired cop standing next to him is looking to his right, yet in the following shot he is looking to his left.

Continuity: When Roark reaches for the phone to call a babysitter his arm is fully stretched out, yet in the following shot its not stretched out but bent at the elbow.

Factual error: The volcanic ash that can be seen throughout the film is too big to be real. The ash shown is something like 1-2 cm in diameter. Volcanic ash is not that big in real life; it is not more than 2 millimetres in diameter.

Continuity: Near the start, Roark is down in the drain and part of his mask melts. When he is back at the surface the mask is in perfect condition.

Other: The subway scene shown at the beginning of the movie during the opening credits is also used just prior to the big earthquake.

Continuity: There is a shot of a 'hippy' style car with lots of slogans and messages written all over it, melting, but in a shot much later on, the same car is still in amongst the lava flow, when it should have melted already. You can tell its the same car from the megaphone on the roof.

Continuity: When Roark is at MacArthur Park talking with the guy from the Department of Water & Power, Roark looks at the hole where they guy came up burnt, and to the right of the hole, there is no red cone, yet in the following shot, a cone suddenly appears.

Continuity: At the Department of Geological Science building, the shot then cuts to a woman saying "I can't". The next is a room full of cameras and a couple of guys standing by the cameras near the doorway, yet in the following shot all the guys have disappeared who were standing by the cameras.

Continuity: When Roark is running to save his daughter, the camera cuts to his point of view and Kelly is shielding the boy with her back towards Roark, yet in the following shot when Roark goes to grab her she is now standing at a side.

Other: During the first major tremor, the city suffers a complete blackout with no lights showing. The city goes completely dark but there are suddenly no car headlights visible either...

Continuity: At the beginning of the film, Mike pulls off a frying pan of eggs from the stove, if you look at the eggs, there are virtually none in the centre of the pan, but in the next shot when he goes to put the pan down before it drops, the centre of the pan is now full of egg.

Continuity: At the beginning after the earthquake, there are two hanging lamps in the kitchen swinging a lot. A closeup of Mike shows a lamp barely moving. The next shot shows them moving much more.

Continuity: Near the end, Roark and Amy are standing over the grid in the street, and when Roark says something like, "I'm not letting you go down there it's too dangerous," Amy is looking down at the grid in the road, but in the following shot she is looking directly at Roark.

Continuity: When Amy Barnes and Roark are in the park, Amy runs up to Roark and says, "Excuse me," and she goes slightly past Roark so she can face him, yet in the following shot she is side by side with Roark.

Continuity: When Amy Barnes is leaning against the 4x4/humvee, she realises it is snowing so she puts her hand up. In the previous shot she touches her face with gloves on, and in the following shot the gloves are no longer on her hands.

Continuity: When Roark is trying to get a radio, and Emmitt is watching on the big screen in the OEM building, there is a black man behind him who is talking to the guy with the headset on. In one shot the black guy is almost back to back with Emmitt and looks over his shoulder to look at the screen, yet when it cuts, the black guy is talking to the other guy but is not back to back with Emmitt.