Tornado Valley

I'll give this one a (huh?) out of ten.

In terms of plot, we have another Twister clone, only without the budget, and without the F/X, and apparently without a screenwriter who's seen the last 17 Twister clones already made. Compared to most Lifetime fare, Tornado Valley really doesn't stand out from the pack, good or bad. It's a bland, formulaic, run of the mill childhood tragedy, adult baggage, dysfunctional family flick that keeps Hallmark and Lifetime from being 24 hour infomercial channels.

Now for the good stuff. We have the Storm Protection Center in Norman, Oklahoma (in reality, the Storm Prediction Center in Norman), a name which got some giggles from me. What, they have a national storm shelter in Norman? "Hey, there's a bad storm, let's head up the Storm Protection Center."

Then there's Matilda, a device that looks like a plasma globe from Spencer's Gifts at the mall, which can not only help with predicting when and where tornadoes will, but will also prevent "billions of dollars in collateral damage". Huh? So, I'm to believe that Matilda can teleport crops, forests, and office buildings out of the path of a tornado? Maybe it's the funky patterns in Matilda's plasma globe that will distract the tornado from hitting people and buildings?

Remember to keep an eye out for the eco-nadoes. No trees, grass, or small forest animals were injured in the making of Tornado Valley, because these tornadoes only eat humans, houses, and tractors, refuse to drop any hail or rain, and are only slightly windier than a ceiling fan. Could be Matilda working subtly from the start...

As children "Liz McAdams" (Meredith Monroe) and "Ellie Wilson" (Pascale Hutton) are playing outside when a tornado appears. Racing back to their house Ellie watches as her mother is swept up into the cyclone and suffers from guilt and trauma from then on. Many years later Liz has become a meteorologist who has recently separated from her husband "Matt McAdams" (Cameron Bancroft) partly because of the traumatic experience she also lives with since that day. Anyway, as luck would have it, Matt has been working on a project to help predict bad weather systems and because of this he just happens to be in the same area as Liz when another extremely bad storm system appears with the capability of reproducing the same deadly results. Now rather than reveal any more of this film and risk spoiling it for those who haven't seen it I would just like to say that this made-for-television picture uses the same standard recipe as several other movies of this particular genre. That said if anyone is expecting something different or more exciting than previous films of this type then they will probably end up being a bit disappointed. Additionally, there isn't much action and the graphics could have used some improvement as well. To make up for these weaknesses the plot relies upon inter-personal drama and in that regard it managed to maintain my interest for the most part. Of course, others may or may not agree with my assessment and that is perfectly okay. In any case, while it certainly wasn't a great film by any means, I didn't think it was necessarily that bad either and I have rated it accordingly. Average.

Maybe I'm just old fashioned, but not every movie has to have state of the art visual effects for me to enjoy it. So they don't destroy L.A., or the planet, but the characters are well drawn, good acting, and it is an enjoyable film. Want a gory disaster film? Watch something else. Want a nice movie? Watch this.

I can't say that this film is actually "awful." It's just not very good. There's not as much action as you might expect and the CGI tornadoes are pretty weak. (Everybody stands around in bright sunlight and a little wind comes up. The next thing you know, a tornado funnel that appears to be about 20' across just drops down into the meadow and pulls somebody away...very slowly. There's no sense of collateral damage, ferocious winds, or even darkened skies. No rain, hail, or flying debris. It's sort of a four-year-old's conception of a tornado.)

This would be bad enough, but the "family story" side of it is also pretty maudlin. I don't know who originally broadcast this, but I'm guessing it was the Hallmark Channel. Absolutely no bite to it.

Definitely not worth your time.

So this was basically a cheap version of Twister. It was made for tv and it's nothing spectacular. But it's not so bad. I thought it was a decent 'lifetime' movie. (Don't think it was actually lifetime, but reminded me of those sorts) A one time watch. Yes, the effects were laughable, but the story wasn't bad.