Into the Storm Review

Grade: C+
One-Liner: Mindless, fluffy, cow-tipping, town-destroying fun!

If you ever want to know how good a film’s story is, take out any known names and put into a bunch of never-before-seen actors (and Lori from The Walking Dead). That’s what Into the Storm inadvertently did, with above average results.

Weather disaster films have always been a guilty pleasure of mine, along with disease outbreak movies (hello, Contagion), so in the midst of hit blockbusters like Guardians of the Galaxy and revolutionary films like Boyhood, I had to sneak in a little survival fluff.

Into the Storm centered around Silverton, Texas when an unprecedented tornado attack ravaged the small town and its inhabitants. The film’s two main stories focused on a team of storm trackers and a family with two sons who went to the local high school and a strict dad who was the Vice Principal there.

For the most part, the film tried to make each scene visible through the eyes of the characters’ various cameras, but ended up bending the range that these cameras would go in real life, losing the effect of movies like 2012's Chronicle or 1999's The Blair Witch Project.

The acting started off sub-par (especially when it came to the angsty teens), but got significantly better as the film progressed. The special effects were surprisingly above average, but made me long for stronger lead actors.

Ultimately, it was no Twister or Day After Tomorrow, but Into the Storm happened to offer me exactly what I wanted on a lazy weekend evening — the opportunity to watch people scramble for their lives from the comforts of a plush theater seat.