This is that “tornado” movie that opened a month ago and nobody much cares about now, but I had to sit through it which means I might as well review it…
What Works: So the bar is set pretty low for tornado movies, as “Twister” may be the gold standard bearer for them and it’s not even that great. Is “Into the Storm” as good as Twister? Nope. Is it as bad as say…Sharknado? Nope. Although at times you wish it were a little bit worse so that it would actually be better. This thing has “guilty pleasure” written all over it, but the filmmakers think they’re making a serious movie and never quite give us the goods in that department. Still, I liked the real-life Batmobile the Tornado chasers rode around in, Sarah Wayne Callies (who usually gets stuck playing the stick-in-the-mud love interest on shows like Prison Break and The Walking Dead) is actually a really appealing lead, and some of the tornado sequences are just awesome enough to keep this movie from being a total disappointment.
What Doesn’t Work: Whenever the characters open their mouths is when the movie hits a break wall. This is one of those all-about-the-effects movies that would really be better as a silent film. Also, there’s an extremely forced family dynamic shoe-horned into the main plot that feels beyond trite, and Richard Armitage is free from his Hobbit-beard but not that character’s lifeless persona. In the role of caring but stern father, something about him just feels…off.
What I Would Have Done Differently: The film doesn’t do nearly a good enough job putting you right inside the fear and panic of when a tornado strikes, and that’s a big problem for a “found footage” disaster movie. Some of that is because we’re never too far from a tornado chasing expert’s point of view, and I think a found footage disaster movie needs to be more of a “rat’s eye” point of view as disaster hits. Imagine a family being trapped inside their home as the walls begin to shake and that awful howling coming from outside…whew, I’ve been through a few tornadoes (as most Alabamians have) and this film doesn’t do a good enough job capturing that confusion and intensity.