Into the Storm (2014)
5:51 PM
If You Go Into the Storm Today, You Better Not Go Alone
Directed by Steven Quale (Final Destination 5), Into the Storm documents the effects of a group of tornadoes on storm trackers, thrill seekers and everyday people. 'There is no calm before the storm' is the tagline of this action flick and it stars Richard Armitage (The Hobbit), Sarah Wayne Callies (The Walking Dead) and Nathan Kress (iCarly). Does this movie have the negative impact of a storm or the positive impact of a sunny day?
I'm going to start off with the factor that annoyed me the most whilst watching this and that is the camera work. The camera switches from being hand held to just your standard type of camera use. I have a problem with 'found footage' films as they do not feel clean and can be quite hard to get into - it is a shame that 70% of Into the Storm is like this. The director clearly made this decision to make the audience feel like they are actually in the storm which (in my opinion) failed miserably. There is one exception, towards the end, there is a scene that uses the handheld camera but you actually go in the tornado which I felt was quite clever and effective.
Into the Storm is also a very dumb movie. You can tell that this is a Hollywood movie as there are a lot of cliches and convenient occurrences. An example of this is when a woman is hanging on for her life about to be sucked into the tornado but the storm suddenly calms down so she survives. Another random and weird example is that even though a storm is literally right in front of them, the characters are outside of their cars recording it. There are many more things like this that occur during the film. It is not a realistic view on a real storm - it is too sugar coated. Also, due to the film only being focused on one town, it is hard to see the effects of the storm on the rest of the country (making it even more unrealistic).
Another problem with this movie is that there are too many characters. It is not until the end of the film that the characters all come together. This makes the film quite confusing as you are following about 3 or 4 different story lines. The acting is quite mediocre and very cheesy. I suppose this can't be helped by a poor screenplay.
Even though there are many issues with this film, there is one thing that it needs praise for and that is the special effects. They are very realistic and really personify the storm into a big monster. However, one disappointment is that when characters are suffering, the screen just goes black and cuts to when the storm has passed. This suggests that the budget for the film was not big enough to cover the whole passing of the storm. Other than this minor factor, the storm sequences are very impressive.
Sadly, Into the Storm failed to make me feel like I was there - I didn't feel any tension or fear, I couldn't connect emotionally with any of the characters and at some points I just laughed at how cliche it was. The film is worth a watch only if you want to see some impressive special effects. However, Into the Storm is nothing special - it is not original it is a missed opportunity and needed a better screenplay and a bigger budget to make it a much better film.
Don't go Into the Storm today, it's safer to stay at home.
2.5 STARS
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Into The Storm
Rated 2.5/5 based on 1 reviews
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