Boobirt
Stylish but barely mediocre overall
Spoonixel
Amateur movie with Big budget
ChampDavSlim
The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.
Hadrina
The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful
fredcdobbs5
The previous reviewers have pretty well summarized this SyFy Channel "epic". It's a by-the-numbers--for the SyFy Channel, anyway--story about a disaster threatening a large city and caused in part by the actions of a corporation that will do anything to increase its profits. It's better than some SyFy Channel movies, and worse than others--if you know anything about the kinds of movies SyFy makes, you'll know what I mean--and about the only REAL reason to watch it is a poolside bikini contest that's interrupted by a volcano turning Miami into a giant steambath. SyFy seemed to have put more money into hiring scads of incredibly hot bikini models--and there are, thankfully, a LOT of them--for this scene than it did for the entire special effects budget, for which they have earned my undying gratitude. Otherwise, there's not really much of a reason to watch this.
Paul Magne Haakonsen
"World on Fire" as the DVD is titled when purchased from Amazon, or "Miami Magma" as titled here on IMDb is definitely one of the more boring and uneventful of natural disaster movies that I have seen. It even makes "Dante's Peak" seem like a masterpiece.The story is about an underground volcano that threaten Miami, and it is up to two scientists to save the city and avert a catastrophe.Of course it is, every single disaster movie follows this exact same script and mold down to the core - no pun intended. However, "World on Fire" just never made it out of the trench to so speak. The plot and storyline was as predictable as they come, and even for a natural disaster movie it was painstakingly predictable to the point where even a blind man would see it coming.Throughout the entire movie there is but a handful of oddly placed localized incidents involving magma or superheated steam. There was surprisingly little magma in the movie, which really was a disappointing lack of things for the movie, and it worked as an anchor around the movie, dragging it down severely in its enjoyment. And also throughout the entire movie there is not a single moment where you feel that the entire city of Miami was in any danger at all. And then it just ended - with the scientists saving the day of course.As for the acting in the movie, well it wasn't Oscar nominated material, let me just put it like that. I was mildly thrilled to see Brad Dourif's name on the cast list, but it was a short lived thrill and not even he could muster to lift up this movie.And don't get suckered in by the fancy DVD cover the way that I did. It promises a massive volcano erupting over a metropolis on fire, and for some reason there are celestial bodies on the sky also erupting with fire. But nothing, and I cannot stretch the word nothing enough here, even remotely like the DVD cover is to be found anywhere in the entire movie. It was just false advertising and luring with hopes of a massive natural disaster movie, that just turned out to be a fluke and nothing more than a fizzling lit match.If you enjoy natural disaster movies, then know that there are far, far better movies available on the market, and "World on Fire" is hardly worth the effort of spending 97 minutes on. "World on Fire"? Nah, more like "Nothing on Fire".
evening1
We decided to watch this because my 10-year-old likes volcanoes. "But there're no volcanoes in it," he complained, with just a little exaggeration. Mostly this is about the machinations of conscience-less, greedy oil drillers. If that's your idea of a compelling plot line, this movie is for you. The storyline is improbable: A long-dormant volcano under Miami is reawakened by venal drilling overhead. What this has to do with an off-shore oil rig that explodes spectacularly in the opening sequence is unclear. Why would Brad Dourif, an actor with a fine acting pedigree extending back to "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," appear in claptrap like this? He gets killed off within the first 30 minutes.New Zealand-born Rachel Hunter, once a supermodel, is of normal body proportions here, in the role of a humorless volcanologist who has an American sister (Melissa Ordway). Go figger. And Cleavant Derricks is the (sometimes very badly written) villain. Imagine one's dying words being, "You bitches!" Well, his are. This film does offer a few good special effects. Ever wonder what it would be like to have liquid nitrogen thrown all over you? You'll find out here. How 'bout what Miami would look like cloaked in lava? Or the havoc a "steam tsunami" would wreak on a beach bikini contest? Some of these scenarios impress, but aren't sufficient to redeem this magma-ficent flop.
Boyd
Only in America ... The SciFi Channel turns out rubbish endlessly ... Some of them so bad they are funny ... But unfortunately most of them are just bad This is the zenith of their product ... 90 moronic minutes of complete rubbish with not one second of humour ( even unintentional ) ... This is truly one of the worst films I have ever seen ... The writing and character development must of been plotted out by one of the producers fourteen year old kids on the way to the studio The thing is about these things, when I read them, I tend to think it can't be that bad ... The person must have a humour bypass or something ... But believe me ... Don't waste even a second on this flat, stupid, badly acted,piece of digital effluent ... Don't even down load it for free ... It is just film spam