Review of Into the Storm (2014) by Bruce722 — 30 Nov 2014

Into the Storm was a very surprising movie for many reasons. The first surprise is that Max Deacon, who plays one of the main characters named Donnie, carries the film from an acting perspective. Sarah Wayne Callies was marketed as the big get but Max Deacon steals the show.

The second surprise was how well the special effects were, especially considering the relatively modest $50 million budget. Also, the shorter duration of 89 minutes didn't prevent Steven Quale from delivering plenty of character development.

Actually, I'd say the shorter time helped the movie as it was able to dive into the action fairly quickly and make for almost a beginning to end, edge-of-your-seat tornado thriller. Lastly, and maybe the biggest surprise of all, the movie was very funny.

Jon Reep and Kyle Davis, playing stereotypical rednecks named Reevis and Donk, respectively, added a great deal of comedic relief and the timing for their wacky humor was perfect and contrasted with the devastation of the town around them well.

There were still some flaws. There was a void of anything scientific whatsoever, which is something that Twister, a film that all tornado movies are compared against, at least attempted. There also was a missed opportunity on some of the emotion.

I thought this last bit could've made the movie leap from exciting and somewhat terrifying nature environmental thriller to deep and insightful catastrophe movie. A leap almost all of the movies in this genre seem to fail at achieving.

Nonetheless, I felt that it was more than worth my time.