Sometimes an entertaining movie helps to frame some of life's stresses. I think that's what happens in Joe versus the Volcaneo.

We find our protagonist trapped in at a desk job in a subterranean office. Flickering floresent lights add to the lack of care and concern demonstrated by this bureaucratic driven operation. Gray walls, life looks gray to the building's inhabitants. Joe wants out and cannot exit.

So here's a romantic fantasy starring Tom Hanks as Joe Banks, a white man who hates his job, thinks the overhead fluorescent lights are making him sick, and quakes at the presence of his boorish boss Frank Watori (Dan Hedaya). If this doesn't remind readers of what a socialist future might mean for them, I guess something in the form of Socialist Realism might help amplify the drabness of Joe's environment.

Joe has a strong attraction to his office secretary DeDe (Meg Ryan). As an inner-directed, shy type of guy, Joe's poor self-esteem inhibits his amorous ambitions. In the flash of a moment, Joe's prognosis for an illness turns to a "brain cloud." This cloud, according to his doctor, Robert Stack, gives Joe five months to live at best, at least if some other form of death does not intervene in his one-dimensional life.

Given this bad news, Joe gains a will-to-lilve life to its fullest. If he hopes to enjoy what's left of his life, he must break ranks with his past and march into a short, but worthwhile future.

Each moment now has meaning for Joe, so he quits his job, and takes on life to its fullest. Then he lucks out. A millionaire named "Graynamore" (Lloyd Bridges) makes Joe an offer he can't refuse. Graynamore owns an island named Waponi Woo. This is no ordinary island. Waponi Woo's indigenous people must have a sugar-fix from the mainland since they've become strung out on an orange fruit drink. Plus, they have a volcaneo that threatens to explode without a sacrafice from time-to-time.

Graynamore coaxs Joe into becoming that sacrafice. Big Woo, the volcaneo, becomes Joe's final resting place, if all goes according to plan. In return, Joe receives a blank check to buy whatever he desires.

Months pass and Joe enjoys what we might call his "inheritance," as it is. Leaving for Big Woo, Joe meets Graynamore's daughters -- Angelica, a Los Angeles socialite, and Patricia, Angelica's blonde half-sister (both roles played by Ryan). Joe arrives at the island, and as he stands at the lips of the Big Woo he has to decide whether he really wants to leap into the maw of the fiery volcano.

Joe reneigs and Big Woo blows. This island of self-sacrafice ends and Joe survices, blown free of the Island. Meg Ryan has stepped in and saved Joe's life by telling him there's been a medical mistake. Someone else, not Joe, has a brain clowd. These two then live happily ever-after, we might imagine.

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