DANTE'S PEAK

DANTE'S PEAK (www.dantespeak.com) This significantly less-than-explosive promotional site for the new disaster flick further demonstrates an often overlooked, built-in flaw of movie pages: Most are nothing more than shamelessly huckstering interactive press releases. Web surfers who fancy themselves aspiring film critics may be tickled by Universal's effusion of on-set photos, cast bios, and deep purple, blurb-ready prose (Dante's Peak ''will leave audiences gaping as they witness the awesome fireworks display of the Earth tearing itself open, erupting in a fury of flame and ash''). Unfortunately, the studio seems so desperate to blow even more hot air into this volcano movie that it neglects the nuts and bolts of good Web-page design -- which may explain why the impressive selection of video clips is truncated at the bottom by reams of blathering text. C