Into the Storm

It's movies like this that make me glad I don't rely on a star-based system or a grading scale to rate movies, because I would have no idea how to score something like Into the Storm.  The movie is contrived as all get-out, with characters who come from a basic screenwriter's course, and dialogue that the actors deserve kudos for just delivering with a straight face.  By all accounts, it's junk.  And you know what?  I kind of appreciated it for that.

At its core, Into the Storm is a spectacle, and it works amazingly on that level.  The massive tornadoes, violent storms and the destruction that they cause looks real, and gets you involved even when the script and the characters cannot.  You go to this movie expecting to see Mother Nature at its very worst, and it delivers.  Best of all, it delivers with no real filler.  There is no "villain" character, allowing the storm to take center stage and be the constant threat to the characters.  There is sort of a romantic subplot, but it does not overpower the narrative.  Really, this movie is all about the effects and the storm sequences.  With a lean running time of just 89 minutes, the movie gives us what we want, and nothing else.  Do the characters suffer from this approach?  Absolutely.  But I had too big of a goofy grin on my face to care much.  This is a big, silly "guilty pleasure" that the summer season has been lacking.

The set up could not be simpler.  A small town is directly in the path of a dangerous tornado system, and we get a group of thinly developed characters who get to act as our eyes as they witness the event.  First off, we have a team of storm chasers, headed by a documentary filmmaker named Pete (Matt Walsh).  The group hasn't had any luck tracking a storm for over a year, so Pete is determined to make this one count.  One of the people on his team is a woman named Alison (Sarah Wayne Callies), who has been on the road so much, she hasn't had any time to spend with her precious five-year-old daughter.  In a parallel plot, a local assistant high school principal and single father named Gary (Richard Armitage) is having a hard time connecting with his two teenage sons since the passing of his wife.  He's also dealing with the fact that he thinks the school's graduation ceremony should be canceled due to the coming storm - an idea that is shot down by the head principal, putting all the students in danger when the violent storms strike up.

Parts of the movie are shot in a handheld "found footage" style, due to the fact that Gary's teenage sons, Donnie (Max Deacon) and Trey (Nathan Kress), are videotaping everything around them for a video time capsule project for school right around the time the storms kick in.  This is fortunate for the filmmakers, as these kids happen to get some very professional looking shots at just about all times.  Donnie also has a love interest (Alycia Debnam Carey), a pretty girl who is alone with Donnie when the storms hit, and they both have to rely on each other in order to survive.  And for comic relief, we get some thrill-seeking rednecks who like to film dangerous stunts and put them up on Youtube, and see a chance for Internet fame when the tornadoes hit.

And what tornadoes Into the Storm gives us!  My favorite was the one that sucks up a lot of flaming fuel leakage, and literally turns into a whirling inferno-like vortex that wreaks fire and destruction in its path.  There's also a scene where about five different tornadoes touch down at once.  Of course, the movie saves the biggest one for its climax.  All of the storms, and the damage they cause, are created with top of the line and highly entertaining special effects.  I don't want to hear the scientific meteorological facts.  I don't care if half this stuff can or cannot happen.  Director Steven Quale (Final Destination 5) gives us some very well-realized and technically impressive action that is improbable, yes, but also kind of enthralling.  There is a frightening majesty to the storms in this movie, and that's all I cared about while I was watching it.

This is most certainly not a movie that holds up once the end credits start to roll, nor do I think I will be looking back on it anytime soon.  But if I should ever think back on it, I know it will be with a smile and a goofy laugh.  What can I say?  Sometimes I'm in the mood for a movie that's not very good, but is still made with a certain amount of skill.  This is one such film.

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