Whipping up a vortex of disaster movie clichés and tornado-force stupidity, action thriller Into the Storm thrusts a bunch of cardboard characters into harm’s way as a near-apocalyptic series of cyclones sweeps through the fictional Midwest town of Silverton.
Annoyingly, it’s a found-footage film, so prepare to be buffeted by shaky camerawork aplenty as the windy plot blows the flimsily drawn protagonists this way and that.
Professional storm chaser Pete (Veep’s Matt Walsh) is a familiar type – a man so obsessive he’d push his mother into the path of a twister if it meant getting a good shot. Fact-crunching meteorologist Allison (Sarah Wayne Callies from The Walking Dead) is a single mom. What do you think are the chances she and Richard Armitage’s widowed dad, the local school vice principal, will share some moments of peril before the end?
His two camera-wielding teenage boys (played by Max Deacon and Nathan Kress) are on hand, too, as are a reckless redneck duo (Kyle Davis, Jon Reep) looking to rack up YouTube hits from their antics. The latter two are clearly designed as the film’s comic relief, though you would be hard pressed to get a chuckle from their Jackass-style japery.
You will get a thrill, though, from the undeniably impressive special effects and the shots of tornadoes shredding buildings and sending school buses and jumbo jets whirling through the air are a blast. Shame the stuff in between is so feeble.
Certificate 12A. Runtime89 mins. Director Steven Quayle.
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