Review of Into the Storm (2014) by Novastream — 15 Sep 2014

Take the director of Final Destination 5, add in the writer of Step Up 5 , some actors from television and a large list of unknowns and you have a disaster on your hands. Sounds like I’m taking the piss but I’m actually serious, Into The Storm made me cringe in the previews and I begged for its big scale disaster and it delivered on every level. The special effects are so catacalysmically astounding, I don’t understand how the movie bombed at the box office…I mean audiences bought horrific acting and story in Transformers 4…and 3….and 2….and to some extent 1…and teenage mutant ninja turtles…and battleship…but still you walk into this movie knowing 100% that the acting is going to be average, the story is going to suck and barely be there, we are here for big screen twisters with an alarmingly high level of destruction and boy did this deliver!

So the plot inverted commas is based around a couple of different groups of people, a couple of redneck goofballs who spend the movie filming crazy stunts to try and get famous on youtube, a group of film students trying to record a college essay video, a group of storm chasers filming a documentary and an entire graduating class. Together their stories intertwine as they try to stay out of fire from the tornados (and yes I say tornados!) as well as flying cars, planes, trucks, wreckage and houses that are tossed around in an epic CGI impress-fest. This movie suffers with its story but makes up for it with groundbreaking CGI work that looks so real you would almost believe it.

He special effects are so masterfully detailed it makes it so hard to criticize this film, it is littered with tornados, including the dreaded firenado, the whole CG looks so real it actually provides a real sense of danger and fear that Twister seemed to really miss.

Now cast wise there are a couple of big names in here Richard Armitage from The Hobbit films, Sarah Wayne Callies from The Walking Dead and Scott Lawrence from Avatar and Star Trek Into Darkness are the standouts for this, the rest are a bunch of fresh faces that don’t provide anything substancial to the role, but given what limited material they are given, it is hardly surprising. Sure its full of characters doing dumb things like running into abandoned factories full of hazardous chemicals and running into the school for shelter and hiding in the hallways and then saying that the school has a storm shelter later on after the tornado has passed, but for all of its misgivings this movie is just pure fun.

Critics have been panning this movie as the worst thing since Transformers 4, but if you simply walk in, switch your brain off and relax, you will find that this 90 minute piece of escapism is a lot of fun and is a great example of how special effects have come.