Scanialara You won't be disappointed!

Tacticalin An absolute waste of money

Leoni Haney Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

Lachlan Coulson This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

mark.waltz Yes, there are a few minutes in this piece of convoluted trash where characters suddenly break out in song. It's the story of a passenger ship heading to Java. Maybe the ship was heading east, but the infamous volcanic mountain is east of Java! The mistake in the title wouldn't be so bad had there not been a song with lyrics that insisted that the volcanic island was east. In between the bad song numbers while waiting for the impending eruption, there's a ton of character development involving the strange captain (Brian Keith) who has sudden hallucinations, the equally handsome Maximilian Schell and Rossano Brazzi, and in fleeting appearances, the much wasted Sal Mineo. The film slowly plods along like the ship, picking up speed here and there, being appropriately cinematic, but never as suspenseful as one would hope.Barbara Werle and Diane Baker provide the feminine beauty to add to some of the gorgeous scenery, but this is a film that focuses more on the men. A great scene has a balloon flying towards the volcano opening that results in a horrific aftermath. I just wish that they had taken more care to the story and the structure, because at just over two hours, it drags a ton and feels very shallow among such deep waters.

Neil Welch Krakatoa: East of Java tells of a boatload of assorted people swanning about in the vicinity of Krakatoa in the period immediately before and during the biggest volcanic eruption in recorded human history.This is the sort of spectacular special effects epic we used to get in the days before film effects were advanced enough to be truly spectacular. Oh, how we loved them in those days. Nowadays, we see a well-built model boat (telltale giveaway being the absence of anyone on deck), less effective model sets, some poor matte lines, big water out of scale with the models, some fun pyrotechnics on a model island on a water tank skyline, far too many obviously repeated shots, and some stock footage of tidal waves.All of this takes place as a backdrop to the tedious goings on between a not-very-interesting group of people, so that you don't really care who survives and who doesn't (in fact there are those who you want the volcano to polish off even though you're not supposed to).I bet this was better back in 1969, when big water was still acceptable.

mdouglasfresno This one's definitely a "mixed-bag"; a movie that wasn't quite sure what it wanted to be. Disaster epic? Musical? Psychological drama? Romance? Adventure? Comedy? The producers threw all these elements into "the old stew pot", gave it a brisk stir, and hoped for the best. For one thing, this movie was simply made at the wrong time -- this just wasn't "were it was at" for audiences in 1969; it looked badly dated and inconsequential. It would have fit far better among the B-picture adventure yarns that were being churned out in the 1950's. Yet unfortunately for the producers, it was too early to be part of the "disaster pic" cycle of the mid-Seventies (though they did re-release it under a new name at that time, maybe hoping to recoup their losses?).I don't know the whole story on the production, but it sounds like the producers were very anxious to get "into the can" all the special effects footage they could of volcano and tsunami, without any concept of how it was going to be pieced together. Apparently they started without anything approaching a finished script, and tried to tack together a story during the filming. Continuity is shaky, the subplots seem underdeveloped, so overall the movie has a sloppy, poorly-edited look. I have to wonder if much of it didn't end up on the cutting room floor. This slip-shod approach probably explains how a major motion picture release could contain in it's title such a glaring mistake in geography! The musical score, and especially Mack David's theme song, is lovely, but it's simply MUCH TOO "Sixties" for a movie set in the 1880's. On the whole, the acting is fairly solid. Diane Baker and Barbara Werle share duties in the romance department; unfortunately, Barbara's character "Charley" is a source of much unintended humor. Worst scene of the movie is where she sings and dances (and strips) around the stateroom she shares with Brian Keith. Was this supposed to be "seductive"? I recall being stupefied at this sudden and unexpected musical interlude; Brian Keith however just looks totally bored. The special effects are okay for their time, and there's enough adventure in this movie to at least make it watchable.

Poseidon-3 Though "Airport" and "The Poseidon Adventure" are most often credited with kicking off the 1970's disaster craze, this film clocked in just a tad earlier and certainly has its share of catastrophes (though nothing is more disastrous in it than the script!) Set in the late 1800's, Schell is the treasure-seeking captain of The Batavia Queen, a steamship bound for a sunken boat that promises to contain bags of huge, priceless pearls. Baker plays his love interest, a mentally troubled lady upon whose memory the entire mission rests. She is also seeking her lost son who her husband off-loaded somewhere before dying. Keith plays a Laudinum-addicted diver who is literally near his last breath. He's toting tacky would-be singer Werle (outfitted in a series of blonde wigs no doubt leftover from her many TV western appearances.) Also on board are father/son balloonists Brazzi and Mineo, bell diver Leyton and a quartet of Japanese female divers, famed for their breath-holding ability. Things get off to a rough start when a sailor falls to his death merely loading the diving bell onto the ship! Then a thoroughly inappropriate song (sounding like The Beach Boys) plays as the ship slips out of port. It gets worse from there as birds mass, fish die, the sky turns orange, smoke descends everywhere and chunks of lava rock are hurled at the boat (and this is before the climactic eruption of the title volcano which, as everyone knows by now, is WEST of Java, not east!) There's even a gaggle of prisoners placed on board to add to the troubles. In the meantime, a lot of dull, pointless dramatics play out amongst the "Grand Motel"-level cast. Baker frets, alternately wooden and over-the-top. Keith engages in drug-induced violence. Werle sings the planet's deadliest song while stripping off her horribly non-period, period costume. Mineo flirts with the oldest of the female divers. Schell wanders around with a nipple hanging out of his torn shirt. The bell and the balloon run into trouble. Nothing seems to go right for these hapless salvage-seekers and it only gets worse when Krakatoa decides to blow (and blow!) At this point, the volcano shoots like a Roman candle, filling the air with ash and creating a massive tidal wave that would make George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg jealous. If any of this sounds entertaining, it really isn't except for some of the special effects. The characters are never properly fleshed out and mostly don't share much discernible chemistry with each other. The screenplay couldn't be any more thoughtless and pointless, though there is one memorable line when lower class Werle barks at Brazzi, "Labels are for jelly jars!" That one would even do well in today's PC environment! The film was heavily edited after its initial release and what remains is so dull it's hard to imagine what was cut! The opening credits act as a sort of trailer for the film. Some audiences may want to let watching that suffice and skip the rest of the movie!