REVIEW | Into the Storm (2014)



No movie is more apt this typhoon season in the Philippines than Into the Storm.

If natural disaster thrillers excite you, and you're longing for that heart-stopping stress and adrenaline rush of experiencing a catastrophic natural calamity from the safety of your cinema seat, then this might be a fun film for you.

In small-town Silverton, everyone is aware of the high school graduation ceremony taking place that day. It's a windy, cloudy day, and graduating senior Donnie (Max Deacon) is filming his classmates' time capsule video and is also busy pushing his father, Silverton High's vice principal, Gary (Richard Armitage), away.

Nearby, a team of storm-chasers, headed by ruthless filmmaker Pete (Matt Walsh), is roaring through the countryside, looking up—and drooling—at the ominous sky for any tornado sightings. But there's a problem—even with a meteorologist, Allison (Sarah Wayne Callies), in the team, the tornadoes are seemingly unpredictable and frustratingly erratic. The only certain thing is, something huge is coming, and is the town prepared for it?



Director Steven Quale (Final Destination 5, Avatar) delivers a very appropriate found-footage style of filmmaking to provide a much more realistic and intense visual experience. See it in a Dolby Atmos theater just like we did and heighten your visual-audio sensory experience with the theater's high quality surround-sound and overhead speakers.

We're not talking about cheap CGI here— the movie's visuals are flawless, no hint of special effects that you might as well be watching the news. But that's it, it's like you're watching the news or an episode of Discovery Channel's Storm Chasers. Jason Swetnam pens a very weak narrative that the film fails to emotionally connect you to the characters. No sense of build-up or tension in the story, and because you have no attachment to the characters, you honestly don't care if they are obliterated.



If the film's aim is to get you as close to the tornado, to display in your face the stunning power of nature's wrath, then it succeeds a hundred percent; beautifully captured tornadoes through the lens of storm chasers and amateur videographers.

A rich narrative would have made this film unforgettable, but because of the middling plot, you are simply relegated to watching a compilation of tornado footage that are superbly edited. There's a special treat in this film, though, the kind of footage that only fiction can provide (the entire movie house just ooohed and aahhhed at this scene.)

If you're after the visual treat of being as close as you can possibly get to these fascinating tornadoes and the awesome destruction they cause, then go see it in the big screen (this just won't work in a laptop screen). However, if narrative is highly essential to you in any film, then just re-watch 1996's Twister. But one thing is for sure, Into the Storm is so visually impressive that it will satisfy the inner storm-chaser in you. .

3.5/5 stars

Opens in Philippine cinemas and 4DX on August 7, 2014



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