Into the Storm

Well at least they didn't do something lame like call it Twister 2 or make it a prequel to the Bill Paxton masterpiece of the 90's; having to suffer through Helen Hunt and her transgender features was painful enough the first time around. I know that's a bit harsh to say but come on, you know you found yourself checking out her Adam's Apple from time to time too! Can you imagine how hard it would be to cast the younger versions of these stars? Well, I actually did come up with a few ideas but I decided to leave those out because this article was becoming unbelievably mean, and if I have any desire to get laid within the next decade, I better keep the Don Imus side of my personality in check!

What I'm trying to say is, I was actually slightly pumped over the fact that someone chose to fill the Roland Emmerich void in my life by making another movie where natural disasters tear shit up! Sorry for cursing but is there any other way to say that? Seriously, if I have the choice between paying $11 to see flaming cows and trucks fly by people's heads or to see Katherine Heigl be the only single 40 year old woman alive who gets an orgasm from holding hands, I choose flaming cows 10 out 10 times! Although can you imagine the confidence you'd have as a man if you could make a woman climax from simply holding her hand? You'd be the slightly scrubbier version of Michael Fassbender in Shame! You have to see the movie to get that joke but I digress.

Into the Storm follows this group of storm trackers, high school students, and wannabe dare devils as an unusual pattern of tornadoes hits the town of Silverton. The storm trackers are led by Pete; an overly ambitious jerk whose only care is to get video of the ultimate storm at any cost. The high school students are Donnie and Trey; these two teenage boys who have a hard time communicating with their dad ever since they lost their mother. And the daredevils are just two drunken hicks who think they'll get rich if they can get one of their stupid stunts to be a hit on YouTube. Somehow all of their paths cross as the tornadoes effectively destroy the town and they have to ban together to simply survive.

You'll find that the story lines are all fairly familiar ones but that doesn't mean they weren't executed well. You can't go wrong with the young boy hoping to finally get with his high school crush or the father having to do everything he can to save his children's lives. I mean, I would've found myself following Alycia Debnam Carey to a random toxic waste site too; even if that meant running into the hillbillies from The Hills Have Eyes. Sadly though that didn't happen in this movie. Also Sarah Callies looks like she never got out of character from her Walking Dead days; someone should tell her that it's ok to eat again. Even though she's skinny, she was still pleasant to look at and she did add a level of credibility to the film with her presence.

But who cares about plot, we came to see tornadoes tear stuff up and dammit that's exactly what we got! It wasn't the biggest budget I've seen thrown at CGI but it still looked pretty cool. And when they ran out of money, they just took the easy way out and you got to experience the storms threw the eyes of those in it via camera phones or camcorders. That was annoying but thankfully there's not too much of it in the film. There's a moment or two where you find yourself on the edge of your seat; and the movie is actually pretty funny throughout with silly jokes thrown in from time to time. And I have to admit that I didn't really expect either going in.

This is not a great movie by any stretch of the imagination but I was highly entertained. I give it a rating of barely FRESH!