INTO THE STORM REVIEW: These are simply my honest opinions on the movie. First off I want to say that this is far from a Twister knock off. Yes there are a few similarities but we will cover that later. Also this movie has received alot of hate thanks to in part from the trailers. I can now honestly say the trailers do not do the movie justice. Ok lets get on with this. THE FILMING STYLE: Into the Storm uses a documentary/found footage filming style. I know some people are put off by that notion but this maybe the first movie where it works almost perfectly. You really feel as if you are experiencing the action first hand. Other films used this format and failed miserably but thankfully they did it right here. THE PLOT: There are 3 branching stories in this film and all intertwine eventually. The movie follows a group of high school students, storm chasers and a couple of wannabe rednecks. This is where critics hit the movie hard.....very hard. The plot is very thin but that is expected in a disaster movie. The first 20 minutes is pretty.......well its one cliche after another. Seriously I could care less about the random students and their issues. The acting is a bit wooden here and you dont really feel any connection with these kids. Thankfully it does get better. After all hell is unleashed you actually begin to care about all of the characters. Its as if the good acting switch was suddenly turned on. If they had just left out the time capsule sequence, the first 20 minutes would have been sooooo much better. The overall story was....ok but the back stories just seemed a bit forced. However this is all expected in a disaster movie so Im not a bit surprised. THE STUDENTS AND FATHER: This part of the movie is where the story failed. It follows two teenaged brothers who have daddy issues and they are only worse because their dad works at the high school. Its the end of the school year and the brothers were assigned the task of documenting the students for a time capsule. I wont go into too much detail but this ends up being dad needs to find one of his kids that ventured off. The movie wants you to feel sorry for the kids but you actually feel bad for the dad because his kids are jerks. This is the part of the movie that felt rushed and unfinished to me. Later on the acting improves and you actually begin to care but it was too little too late. THE STORM CHASERS: This was pretty straight forward. This group of chasers is trying to film a documentary and built a tank to get that once in a lifetime shot. They have had a terrible season with zero success and have become desperate. I thought this group did a good job. There are even parts that most of us chasers can relate to. Such as picking the wrong target, equipment failures, among a few other things. There isnt much to say without giving too much details but I thoroughly enjoyed this group. Honestly I think the movie should have focused on them a bit more. THE REDNECK WANNABES (because Murika!) These guys are the comic relief of the movie and at times were hilarious. These two idiots are trying to become You Tube stars by performing stupid stunts. Once these two nutjobs see the real storm chasers roll through they think Why the hell not and go chasing themselves. Some people may think these guys are over the top but sadly there are chaser chasers out there that act like this. You may hate these guys but I grew to love them and I feel guilty about that. THE TORNADOES!!! These ended up being the true stars of the movie. The trailers made the tornadoes look way too CGI but they look way better in the movie. Seriously the tornadoes looked pretty damn believable. These tornadoes were straight up mean and savage. Someone did their homework because I cringed several times during the tornado sequences. On another good note is you get the perfect amount of tornado time in this movie. In Twister I was let down because I wanted to see more of the tornadoes. Here it isnt too little nor is it too much. Where Twister focused more on the spectacle of tornadoes, Into the Storm focused on the violence. This movie did a damn good job of putting you inside a tornado without making you want to vomit. I also want to add that the tornadoes actually sound like tornadoes and not pissed off lions like in Twister. Oh yeah.......the tornadoes are loud......very very loud. THE SCIENCE: What I am pleased to share with yall is this movie is more scientific than Twister. They even used the terms in the right places at times! This is also the first tornado movie to include wall clouds and other supercell structure and that was a nice surprise. There is quite a bit of detail put into the tornadoes as for the first time in movie history you see things like multiple vorticies, tornadoes rotating the right way, tornado life cycle, and even horizontal vorticies. As for being realistic I give this movie another point above Twister. Yes there are a few things that were far fetched but you know.........Hollywood. This movie really captured the violence tornadoes posses and the destruction they can cause. Hell even the debris flying around was very convincing. This movie sent chills down my spine a few times especially during the opening scene because screw nighttime tornadoes. Now there are three scenes I want to mention and please feel free to discuss in the comments below. 1. The Fire Tornado: Now we all know fire whirls exist and even on rare occasions a true tornado can cross a large fire and become a legit tornado of fire. Now I know this movie exaggerated this part just a bit but at the same time it was plausible. 2. EF5 Tornado Hits An Airport: There is a scene where a wedge lifts 747 jets high into the air. To an extent this isnt that unbelievable but I think they should have had the tornado rip the planes apart instead. Again feel free to discuss. 3. Eye Of The Tornado Scene: Really Hollywood..........really? Other than a few exceptions I would say this maybe the most realistic tornado movie out there. INTO THE STORM VS TWISTER: There really isnt much to say here because they are just two totally different movies. Twister had a much lighter fun tone where Into the Storm was much darker. Seriously there just isnt much to say here. CLOSING THOUGHTS: Some people are going to enjoy this movie and some are simply going to hate it. This is definitely not a knock off of Twister and surprisingly turned out to be a damn good movie. Other than the very thin plot and acting (first 20 minutes) this ended up being my new favorite tornado flick. I fully recommend seeing this in theaters as it just adds to the effect (Imax and XD are the way to go). To those of you who are dead set on this being a terrible movie, give it the benefit of the doubt. Its not perfect by any means but it was very enjoyable and even had me at the edge of my seat at times. As a go have a blast a the theater kind of movie I give it a 10 out of 10. As a movie in general its a solid 7.
Posted on: Fri, 08 Aug 2014 04:25:50 +0000