Into the Storm Review

Creative special effects do not a great movie make. Take Steven Quale’s disaster movie “Into the Storm” for example. This flick is pretty much what the trailer makes it look like; An inferior take on “Twister”, shot as a found footage film.

In “Into the Storm”, a team of uninteresting and underwritten storm chasers cruise along the parameters of Silverton in a custom built tank called Titan. Titan’s crew anxiously await the arrival of a twister so that they might study it and gain knowledge that will aid them in saving future lives. Of course, they will risk present lives in the process. Meanwhile, a couple of teenage brothers—who have a strained relationship with their overbearing father– continue to be a thorn in their dad’s side on the day of the big high school graduation ceremony. All of this deep rooted Shakespearean level drama is gently pushed to the side when a super storm comes along and makes a mess of Silverton.

Had this flick been rated R, perhaps Quale could have gone off and dispatched characters in creative fashion like he did in “Final Destination 5”. Alas, “Into the Storm” is PG-13, so no such luck. What we’re left with are a bunch of one dimensional  characters who are insistent on making one poor decision after the next.

Richard Armitage (who’s quite charismatic as Thorin in “The Hobbit” films) is dull as a father reeling from tragedy while lovely Sarah Wayne Callies probably doesn’t stand much of a chance at gaining back the respect of a legion of “Walking Dead” fans who turned their backs on her because of her flip floppy nature as Lori Grimes on the popular AMC series, at least, not with this flat performance.  Max Deacon and Alycia Debnam Carey do their best to inject a real sense of peril during their big “Abyss” sequence, but because their characters are so painfully underdeveloped, their talent and natural likability is squandered. Matt Walsh has a few appropriately fun (and gleefully insensitive) moments as a storm tracker with his eye on the prize, and his climactic moment in this picture is certainly an “Into the Storm” highlight.

Are the visuals in “Into the Storm” worthwhile? You bet. They’re very good. Perhaps too good. In fact, the A-list visuals do the movie a great disservice because they don’t mesh with the D-list writing. It’s tricky business getting a B-movie right and this film isn’t silly enough to work as schlock.

The creative visuals and effects laden set pieces will, no doubt, be enough for some viewers, but it certainly wasn’t enough for this viewer. “Into the Storm” would have been a bigger rush for me had I actually felt something for the characters whose lives were on the line. Heck, if this flick would have dumbed down the visuals and embraced the cheese, that might have worked too. As it stands, I’ll take the self aware ridiculousness of two “Sharknado” movies over this mess any day of the week and twice on Sunday.