If, like me, you saw the trailer for the new tornado thriller, “Into the Storm,” and thought you were finally getting the “Twister” sequel you’ve always wanted but never got, then, like me, you’d be wrong. What we got instead was a cheaply made natural disaster pic that would be more at home on the Syfy Channel than in a movie theater. I paid nearly 20 bucks for two tickets, meaning I could have stayed home, ordered pizza, and watched “Sharknado,” and had a better time.
That’s not to say “Into the Storm” doesn’t have its moments. It does. A scene in which an F5 rips a devastating path through a small town is effective. During the sequence, a small number of people end up trapped in a storm drain, clinging desperately to anything that will keep them from being ripped outside. Some of the special effects involving the human characters are impressive and might elicit a, “How did they do that?”
I suspect part of the answer would be, “The filmmakers put all of their money into that one scene and skimped on everything else.”
They certainly didn’t spend much on the script. The movie follows a handful of characters as they face multiple tornadoes in a single day: the widower trying to raise two high school age sons; the tornado chaser with a heart of stone; and a pair of redneck daredevils. The latter are in the movie for comedy relief, but really, you won’t miss much if you leave the theater to relieve yourself of the soda you drank whenever they appear.
Writer John Swetnam did try to inject some humanity into the script: the father’s relationships with his sons are strained; the tornado chaser has been building up to this day his entire life, and although we don’t know why, he’s eager to see the eye of the storm; and one of the sons winds up trapped with the girl he loves at the bottom of a cave-in, with water rising around them.
If the budget for “Into the Storm” had been bigger, or if the filmmakers had hired better actors, the dramatic aspects of the script might have worked, although the story still would have been as shallow as a shower. But as it is, the appalling acting by much of the cast (only Sarah Wayne Callies, who starred as Lori Grimes on the “Walking Dead,” delivers a professional grade performance) and the cheap production values make “Into the Storm” tedious to watch.
How bad are the production values? Much of “Into the Storm” looks and sounds as though it was shot on a smart phone rather than with a movie camera. The image on the screen was smaller than a regular film, and the shots felt crammed. While the wide shots of the storms are impressive, director Steven Quale has no clue how to shoot the actors, so his character shots are tight and flat, giving much of “Into the Storm” a claustrophobic, rather than a cinematic, feel.
To be fair, Quale does utilize a lot of video shot by the cameras the various characters carry, but even the traditionally shot scenes suffer from these issues.
Just as frustrating are the elements of the screenplay that go nowhere. For example, a big deal is made of a special apparatus on the vehicle driven by the tornado chaser, but it’s never used in a way that makes a difference. Then there’s the odd scene in which one of the tornado chaser’s cameramen dies attempting to get a great shot, and after playing the blame game for a few seconds, the surviving members of his crew essentially say, “Anyway, that sucked. So, where’s the next tornado going to appear?” and drive off without searching for the corpse.
“Into the Storm” might play better on your television when it’s released on video. You’d still have to endure the schlock, but at least you’ll be able to do it in the comfort of your own home while eating a pizza.
One-and-a-half stars out of four. Rated PG-13 for sequences of intense destruction and peril, language, and sexual references.