Review of Tornado Alley (2011) by Kendall I — 22 Jul 2012

I was able to catch this at my local IMAX theater, and I have to say that it was money well spent. This really delves into the nature of tornados and their power.

PLOT/SUBJECT:In this documentary about tornados, we follow two teams of tornado scientists in their journeys. We follow one team called V2 and their mission to capture more information about tornado origin, and we follow another team called NIV(?) and their mission to drive their armored vehicle into the center of a tornado and capture the intense footage. It's a good subject executed pretty well.

PEOPLE:The whole documentary is narrated by Twister's Bill Paxton (of course) and it stars one of the guys from Storm Chasers, Sean Casey. Paxton's narration was pretty good and legit and Casey's dedication to capturing his vision on film was very honest and intense.

SCORE:The background score for enhancing the intensity of the violent weather was pretty well composed. I liked the ending theme.

OTHER CONTENT:This IMAX documentary on the intensity of tornados was pretty intricate and very entertaining. It gave me chills at times and backed up a lot of their findings with scientific facts. However, there were a couple flaws I found with it that brought it down. Firstly, there were a few times where it tended to drag and get a little boring. Secondly, when we finally get to the intense conclusion of NIV's mission, it seems to pass faster than we expect, and it kind of becomes a let down when we find out that it's not as intense as we hoped. Nevertheless, it was still a very entertaining little film, especially with the IMAX film experience.

OVERALL,a great IMAX documentary with a good subject matter, good narration, honest dedication, well composed score, a pretty intricate study, overall entertainment, and scientific facts to back it up, but it dragged a good bit and the end is kind of a letdown.