While we’ve had sharks in tornados before, we really haven’t had a gigantic fire tornado. Until now. Into The Storm delivers a rather memorable scene with a tornado made of fire, and no it’s not some b-movie gone mad, it’s a tornado that sucks up a burning petrol station. Small town USA gets it’s ass handed to it by an unprecedented onslaught of tornadoes and Richard Armitage is right in the middle of it.
Things start off small enough with one’s stereotypical tornado and ends with a twister that makes everything that’s gone before it look like a warm breeze on a summer’s day. That F5 that turns up in the finale in Into The Storm is rather spectacular and causes all kinds of devastation and stress of our helpless cast, which sees Richard Armitage attempt to find his son in all the destruction. It’s in these final twenty or so minutes that the movie finally finds it’s feet, and while the previous hour isn’t a complete disaster (no pun intended) it’s left down by far too much exposition with characters that are about as engaging as a fallen tree. Audiences won’t care whether or not these characters live or die. It’s not that the characters are poor, it’s just nobody has much screen time and none of them are developed in any sense. A pair of rednecks are probably the best thing here and would easily be watchable in their own movie (or a youtube channel)
Richard Armitage is likeable and watchable as he always is, but at times, especially when he raises his voice, he slips into Throin Oakenshield mode and you’ll be expecting a bunch of Orcs to come hurtling out of a tornado. The supporting cast do an adequate job and Max Deacon in particular is rather good.But with a script that dictates multiple plot lines and cast members scattered within, the movie darts all over the place and as a result suffers greatly.
When the tornadoes hit, after what feels like a dreary and stagnant opening 20 minutes, the movie turns into a big old piece of popcorn fun. Visually, it’s not spectacular and you’d think tornado visual effects would have come on in leaps and bounds since Twister in 1996. Into The Storm, is ok visually and if it was released twenty years ago it would have been impressive. But by todays standard, it’s average at best. The set pieces don’t reinvent the wheel, and while there may well be a nod to Twister (with a flying plastic cow) it still feels like it’s poor cousin. That said, in places, it does work quite well and while much of what’s teased in the trailers (“Flying” 747s etc.) is kept until the finale, when that gigantic tornado rolls in, it does put you on the edge of your seat and it manages to do something that is rather rare these days. Just when you think it’s over, it picks up the pace and goes again and that’s strangely satisfying.
The biggest problem here is the underdeveloped cast and a slow start, but overall Into The Storm is certainly entertaining in places and is just about worth a watch, just don’t expect to get blown away.
