Metal Tornado

Despite it airing on the notorious SyFy channel, I saw it anyway hoping for a film to ease my mind after a very on-edge weekend. I have seen some awful movies, whether on SyFy or not, and while SyFy have done much worse, Metal Tornado was awful. I will give some credit, the acting is not too bad, there has been far worse acting than this. The problem was that the actors didn't have anything to work from, as the characters are so dull I didn't give a tuppence about them and the dialogue has no natural flow to it at all. The effects, photography and editing are haphazard and the music has melodrama written all over it, but it's the story that sinks Metal Tornado, not only does it drag to the point of boredom and doesn't make any sense whatsoever, I failed to see the point to it. The concept didn't grab me, and at the end of the day I just didn't care. All in all, I was kind of expecting it to be bad, but not this awful. At least the actors tried, however that is the only good thing I can say about the movie. 2/10 Bethany Cox

Trying to find a new, much more powerful way of using solar energy, scientists are setting free a magnetic field which roams across the country, whirling around every kind of metal thing, until the effect is a metal tornado which destroys towns almost like a very big lawnmower. Every time the hero is asked just how scientific the whole thing is, he says something like "No time to explain now", and starts to run. So much for that. Following the clichés of the genre, there is a rebellious genius, warning that a catastrophe is near, and an evil business man who wants to hush the whole thing up even at the cost of some lives. With increasing power of the storm, they have to work together and find a possible solution, though.

Yes, it's a typical genre movie going by the checklist what's got to be in there, but still it was better than I expected. It was wise just to put a town in Pennsylvania in danger, not having to save the whole world this time. A parallel event in Paris is also described, the Eiffel tower being a perfect choice for any catastrophe related to magnetism, but since all the main characters are in the US, this string of the story remains pale.

Even if the special effects are very, very cheap - such as rattling a shelf with tin cans to show the tornado is approaching - it looks okay for a TV production. Always keep in mind we are talking about small budget TV here, comparisons to Hollywood blockbusters with their enormous technical capabilities are therefore neither reasonable nor fair. Taking that into consideration, I vote 6 of 10.

Well, just given the title of this movie you already know what you are in for. And true enough, this movie delivered exactly what was expected.

The storyline alone was so implausible, and it was really hard to buy into what was happening. Throughout the movie I was curling my toes every time I saw that electromagnetic tornado. It was just such a bad concept.

As for the cast in "Metal Tornado", well the only face I recognized was Lou Diamond Phillips. Now I am not one to judge his selection in roles in movies, but "Metal Tornado", for real? The people in the movie were doing good jobs with their roles, it was just the story that was halting and dragging everything down.

There are lots of disaster movies out there, and there seem to be no real middle ground. The disaster movies are either super awesome with amazing effects, or they are quite the opposite; disasters in themselves. "Metal Tornado" must be said to be in the latter of the two categories. There are far better disaster movies available out there, and "Metal Tornado" is good for only less than mediocre entertainment if you are really, really into disaster movies and have nothing better to do.

Honestly, then I have seen worse disaster movies than "Metal Tornado", but still, it was hardly worth sitting through from start till end.

An experiment with unlimited energy form solar flares goes awry. At least that is the premise. In reality, it is a standard disaster movie. The head of the firm was warned ahead of time that the technology had a flaw. Naturally, it was ignored. After the fact, Michael Edwards (Lou Diamond Phillips) suspects there is a problem; so do we.

The formula is standard. We already know the individual characters needed form watching other standard disaster movies and the plethora or tornado knockoffs. Now we get to guess which actor gets to play which character.

We have flying cars before their time.

Finally, they throw in some drones. But I miss big bugs and flame throwers.

with you people? You decide to watch a movie called Metal Tornado and expect a great masterpiece? On the SyFy Channel? This move delivers exactly what it is supposed to deliver. Entertainment. Granted, there are better movies of this same type out there, with a little more excitement, but this one isn't all that bad. That would be the only fault I could find is that it drags in some spots. I did not expect to watch a movie that had a great grasp of physics when I saw the title.

I got just what I expected from a SyFy channel movie. I recommend it if you are having a 'bad movie night' and keep in mind where the film comes from.