Popular reviews

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  Review by James (Schaffrillas) ★★½

  Not one Joe Mama joke in the whole thing

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  Review by SilentDawn ★★★★★ 4

  100

  I could lie and say that I kept myself at a distance from Joe Versus The Volcano's charms for most of the run-time, eventually succumbing to its bizarre pleasures - its mix of classic Hollywood, screwball romantic comedy, and Kafka nightmare. But I didn't. I basically fell hook line and sinker in the first twenty minutes, with director/writer John Patrick Stanley dedicating the entire first act to Joe's capitalistic slump, the catalyst to rise out of it, and a beginning of an ever-evolving fantasy. Joe Versus The Volcano is about a lot of things. It's an odyssey that critiques the functionality of what we buy to feel satisfied or important; how our paychecks go towards objects to make us…

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  Review by Scumbalina ★★★★½ 1

  Inspired me to quit my dead end job years ago. A decision I've never regretted. Criminally misunderstood little masterpiece.

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  Review by matt lynch ★★★★½ 1

  "I forgot how big."

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  Review by Jonathan White ★★★★½ 79

  “There are two types of people in this world: those who unabashedly love Joe Versus the Volcano, and those for whom the world is a sad, joyless, unforgiving place”

  Cramer K

  
  A little while ago my Letterboxd buddies Andrew Willis and ScreeningNotes asked me to be a guest on their Podcast Movies Now and Then ( why, I have no clue ). They proposed that they would break from their usual format of discussing a new release and a classic, and this time discuss movies that they love that were critically drubbed or spurned by audiences. My immediate thought was my beloved Joe Versus the Volcano, which was both slashed by most critics and, while it made a modest profit,…

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  Review by Mike D'Angelo ★★★★½ 5

  84/100

  Watching Under the Skin a few years ago, I spent the entire first hour thinking that it might be the greatest film I'd ever seen. Had a similar experience here: For its first 55 minutes, this feels like my very favorite movie, the one I truly love more than any other. That Shanley didn't direct another film for 18 years (and then only an adaptation of one of his stage plays) ranks among the great tragedies of cinema in my lifetime—for me, it's as if Rushmore had been perceived as such a disaster that Wes Anderson never got to make anything else. Joe is a thoroughly realized vision, bold and fearless; even in his script for Moonstruck, Shanley wasn't…

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  Review by Chris Evangelista ★★★½ 1

  We really needed more movies with Meg Ryan using funny voices

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  Review by Jordan Horowitz ★★★½

  I loved this? So weird and exciting. And some truly excellent dialogue, obviously.

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  Review by Ashton ★★★

  the masculine urge to quit my job and jump into a volcano

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  Review by Rafael "Parker!!" Jovine ★★★½ 6

  Tis’ some weird a** s**y.

  After winning the Oscar for Moonstruck and writing two other films, John Patrick Shanley directs a young Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in the first of several films they would make together.

  Its highly surreal style sets it apart from other collaborations that follow a traditional narrative structure. There's a cross between Terry Gilliam and Charlie Kaufman, and the cinematography at the beginning is reminiscent of Paul Thomas Anderson. The story takes a while to get going, but once it does, it is an entertaining (and literal) journey involving love and bizarre circumstances that never fail to surprise me. Shenley does an amazing job of making us feel as if we're stuck in a tangled…

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  Review by Molly Laich ★★★★★

  I’m not arguing that with you

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  Review by Timcop ★★★★½ 7

  So many great things crammed into one movie seems almost impossible, and yet here it is, with it's deft mixture of old-school film references and discussions on philosophy to it's genuinely exciting adventure moments. With an outstanding supporting cast, particularly Lloyd Bridges and Ossie Davis, Tom Hanks does his best Jimmy Stewart aided by an amazingly versatile Meg Ryan, who may never have been better after this. The comedy is bleaker than black at times (especially that ending), but sitting in a theater and watching it with a surprisingly riveted audience (some of which were children!?!) I never experienced anything but pure joy. In another review of this movie, someone mentioned tightening up the pace and editing it down some because it was too long. To them I say: Fuck you.