[Review] Head Into the Storm for a boring, predictable two hours of cinema
Into the Storm follows residents of a small town, from students to professional storm-chasers, in the build-up to a mega-tornado. It is painfully predictable, with clichéd scenes at every possible point.
The characters are all basic movie stereotypes with no real personality or individuality, like the strict single dad whose sons resent him for the loss of their mother, or the selfish storm-chaser who values good tornado footage over everything and everyone. These stock characters are so cardboard, it's hard to take them seriously, let alone sympathise with them. The dialogue is ultra cheesy, but at least makes for some laugh-out-loud cringe moments.
The plot is thinly stretched, and has a lot of holes as it struggles to balance realism and ridiculous. Some of the action scenes are reminiscent of Final Destination 5 in that they seem comically impossible, but director Steven Quale tries to portray them as serious.
The movie is filmed from the handheld cameras of the different characters, causing the footage to be shaky and frustratingly inconsistent in an attempt to be "real". As most viewers have never been in the eye of a tornado, they might be convinced by the CGI effects, but the plot holes and weak characters make for a very average disaster movie.