Review: Into the Storm

147. Into the Storm
"Into the Storm" took the opposite "path of quality" to the just reviewed "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles". While that film toyed with being "okay" for a short time before rapidly declining in quality, this one starts out poorly, but eventually becomes a serviceable, if unremarkable, disaster flick.

When I say the film starts poorly, I mean that for a while there it's really bad. It kind of takes a found footage approach. Everyone seems to have a camera and is running around filming everything, but there are occasional moments where the action seems to be shot from an outside perspective, so I'm not sure how wedded the filmmakers were to the aesthetic. Regardless, it becomes incredibly contrived as the script comes up with unconvincing reasons for each of the various characters to have cameras rolling every time the action ramps up. You know how in found footage horror movies it often gets to a point where you find it hard to believe the characters would keep filming instead of dropping the camera and running? That's bad enough, but imagine every character in the movie having a camera and showing the same exact lack of self preservation instinct. Some of the characters here are a storm chasing camera crew, so they get a bit of a pass, but with most of the others it's inexplicable. The introductions of the various characters are also handled poorly. The relationships between them are all incredibly clichéd, running the gamut from overbearing parent, to absentee parent, to bickering coworkers, to "Golly gee, you're the hot girl I've always had a crush on but have never talked to before, but since the movie is starting now I should probably start talking to you."

The film doesn't save itself right away once disaster starts to strike, but it does start to bump up in quality shortly thereafter. Two of the more grating characters are quickly dispatched, and the others come together in fairly short order, narrowing the scope of the narrative and making the film more focused. At a certain point most of the characters still filming actually have a reason to be, removing that gripe from my list of complaints. The clichéd relationships also become less important, fading into the background as the characters' focus turns towards simple survival. To a point, the film does manage to exploit this, putting together some pretty intense sequences by tapping into primal urges and fears. It doesn't do so as effectively as other films have done, but it's better than nothing. For the most part, the effects in these sequences are of high quality--very good since they're why most people are probably coming out to see the movie. There is also enough variety in each subsequent storm sequence to keep the audience from getting bored.

Once the film gets past its very shaky first steps, it becomes passable entertainment. Even at its best it is still extremely formulaic (a tornado, followed by a respite, followed by a bigger, more intense tornado, etc.), but I enjoyed myself more than I was expecting.

C