13-year-old April and 8-year-old Sean lose their parents in an Oklahoma tornado. At least the parents were trying to save someone's life.
Thirty years later, April is a published author and a professor at River Point University, supposedly in Oklahoma, since her daughter Dana is in high school in Wyattsville, Oklahoma. She is known as "Tornado Lady" because she is a storm chaser, and she lectures on how global warming has made the planet's weather more violent.
April takes Lew, a student newspaper reporter, out on one of her adventures. Little does she know that this one will involve her daughter Dana, who is rehearsing "Romeo and Juliet" at her high school.
What happens when April and Dana meet is truly shocking.
Sean is the sheriff of Shiloh Hills, outside Seattle. His wife Molly is pregnant, and she invites April and Dana to visit. Dana is basically a good kid, but she has an attitude and doesn't want to go. April persuades Dana to come along by pointing out that Garfield College has a great drama program and Dana might want to go there.
The last thing Dana wants is for this to be yet another of her mother's adventures. But it just so happens that the Seattle area is about to get hit with the worst storm systems in its history. Unbelievable hail, tornadoes like the area has never seen. Oh, by the way, April went to college with Travis, a TV meteorologist in Seattle.
Dana is constantly arguing with her mom, but she does have some fun, as it turns out. While in Washington she meets Ryan, the bad-boy son of a local developer who is being harassed because he doesn't build houses up to code. (The father is being harassed for his business practices; the son for his overall behavior.)
Sean and April don't get along, because April doesn't think Sean is grieving enough for the parents they lost thirty years ago, and because Sean left Oklahoma. He is not affected in the least when he sees a mother of a young boy who has died--at least not enough for her.
There is occasional excitement, especially toward the end, and it's not all because of the tornadoes. Even at the end, though, the dialogue leaves something to be desired.
Elyse Levesque is beautiful and has her moments (no, playing Juliet is not one of them), but I don't think anyone will win awards for this movie. Mimi Rogers is pretty for her age.
The visual effects are impressive for about five seconds, and for a little longer in the final scenes. I guess the budget was limited.
But for scientific accuracy this movie falls short. Is a storm system that produces tornadoes supposed to resembled a hurricane in satellite photos? Not unless it was a hurricane to begin with. This one seems to have come in from Canada, and even if it formed over water, hurricanes don't form off Seattle. Yes, I know, global warming. Weather is supposed to have gone crazy.
Also, Travis' weather maps don't make sense. I've been looking at how warm fronts and cold fronts are supposed to be drawn. If the fronts are depicted accurately, this is wacky weather. Besides, I thought cold fronts were supposed to be blue and warm fronts red, not the other say round. But then these fronts aren't behaving how they're supposed to.
Is it worth seeing? Well, I had a good enough time.
