Tornado!

We all know what the problem is with disaster movies: they never look like the real thing. If you've seen a documentary about storm chasers, every movie you see about tornadoes just doesn't feel real. The same here, although I have to admit that I liked it more than Twister. The reason why I think this one is better is because it tries to be faithful to the reality, while in Twister all that mattered were the spectacular special effects.

"Tornado!" tells the story of Dr. Branson who has developed a device that can do a lot of measurements when it is placed in the middle of a tornado. Of course his team receives money from the government for that, but the government wants to see results. Sam Callen is sent to Texas to shut down Dr. Branson's project, but gives him a few days to come up with some results for him to be able to continue his project.

Of course the team is made up by a naive scientist, a nerd and some cowboys, while Sam Callen is a yuppie that has no interest in tornadoes, but only thinks about her job and the results she has to book. I guess I don't have to make a drawing of what is going to happen next: she's always in a fight with one of the storm chasers, but in the end they fall in love... I guess that's the way Hollywood thinks it always goes.

As I already said the storms aren't the real deal and the story is predictable, but at least it isn't as unbelievable as Twister. And we have to take into account that the makers of Twister had a much bigger budget than the people who did this movie. That's why I give this movie a score of 5,5/10.

"Tornado!" is actually quite similar to "Twister", so if you have seen that movie, then you know what you are in for here. But don't let that discourage you from watching the movie, because "Tornado!" actually is good entertainment.

Initially I picked up the movie because it had Bruce Campbell in it. And I must admit that I was sort of expecting his usual comedy-acting in the movie, so it was a rather nice surprise to see him acting seriously for a chance, and he really did a good job at it as well.

The story is about Jake Thorne (played by Bruce Campbell) and Dr. Joe Branson (played by Ernie Hudson) who are chasing after tornadoes in order to study them for future predictions. The government sends out an official to get results or have their project shut down, this is Samantha Callen (played by Shannon Sturges).

"Tornado!" doesn't boast the best of CGI effects or special effect, but whatever effects they did use actually worked out well enough, though at times I could have wanted a bit more furious effects to make it seem that the tornado was actually there and being rampant. But overall, the effects were adequate enough. Just don't expect to be dazzled by state-of-the-art CGI.

If you like disaster movies, then "Tornado!" is definitely worth giving a chance, because it is far better than so many other doomsday-like disaster movies available. And if you are a fan of Bruce Campbell, then you should most definitely check out this particular movie.

At one point in the movie, Bruce Campbell is told that he is not god. Realism aside, however; for a TV movie, this isn't too bad. It loses out to it's bigger budget 1996 big brother; Twister on just about every front, but there is still reason enough for this movie to warrant your time. Bruce Campbell is the main reason; he's a B-movie legend. His performance here doesn't echo the fantastic work he did on The Evil Dead films, in fact; none of his other films have anything on those great performances and I continually get the impression that Bruce's heart just isn't in a lot of the stuff he makes. However, it's always a pleasure to see this great man in a movie and although, as I said, his performance isn't great; it's good enough, and he alone is more than enough reason to see the film. The rest of the cast isn't noteworthy...the majority of the acting is typical TV fare; not rock bottom, but not exactly good either. Campbell is more than enough to keep it afloat, however.

The effects in Tornado! aren't brilliant. Not even good, in fact. They're very low quality and don't even come close to the lovely effects in Twister. The effects here are mostly just tease stuff; there's wind and people shouting, but rarely do we see a tornado, and even when we do it's usually a cut from a real tornado, as opposed to an actual effect. This is good in a way, but bad in another; as although it's more realistic, it loses credibility as it means that we don't get to see the tornado ravaging houses and cars etc. The story of Tornado! is really rather dull, as it tries to draw parallels with the current global warming situation. This is a waste of time, and the movie would have been better served not bothering; as nobody is going to listen to a message in a low quality TV movie. Also, just like in Twister, Tornado! has some extremely terrible human drama to go with the tornados. Unfortunately, unlike in Twister; the drama here is central to the story, as opposed to secondary like it was in Twister. And this is unfortunate because the drama is bad.

Overall, I'd have to say that Twister has far more going for it than this movie does. But then again, Twister doesn't have Bruce Campbell; so I'd recommend this movie because Bruce Campbell is in it, and he's actually starring this time; unlike in most of his non-Evil Dead films in which he only has a small cameo appearance.

A good TV movie. It's slow pace, BORING characters, shoddy plot and sub par effects all come standard with the TV-movie genre and this is no exception. The only character I found interesting was bruce campbell's father, he kept the film alive for me. The pace is terribly slow and at times annoying, the scenes with supposed character development are shocking (who wants to hear about boring peoples lives?). The tornado sequences are bland, the first two are false alarms and so nothing is seen then the last two are shown, only barely but and with C grade effects.

Nothing special here, as I said before, it's good for TV but not for anything else.

4/10

Samantha Callen is sent down to twister country to assess the financial merits of a tornado research project and, if possible, shut it down to save money. She meets the project manager Dr Branson who is passionate, and his associate Jake Thorne who is very much the cowboy. Her role is to close the project down and Jake knows it but despite this the two find themselves attracted to one another. When Sam sees the effects of a tornado first hand she struggles with the decisions she is supposed to implement – but can Branson's technology really make a difference?

On 28th July 2005, a part of south Birmingham was hit by a small tornado, ripping up roofs, buildings, fences and hurting about 30 people. It was also on this day that I decided to watch this TVM, thinking that I might as well do it while it is topical if nothing else. Unsurprisingly trying to ride the coattails of Twister, this film fails to deliver in any way and manages to make the hollow event of Twister look like it is Citizen Kane. The plot is insipid and pointless, failing to make me care about the people or the scenario. The lack of action means that we were clearly expected to get into the plot, something that I couldn't do. The total lack of budget is a bit of a problem since even Twister struggled to be a good film with a massive special effects budget. Tornado has a few very poor effects and some moments of people running around in a wind machine – they are laughable rather than exciting and there was nothing here either. I did wonder what it was trying to do (other than cash in) because with both plot and effects poor at best there is no reason to bother.

The cast cannot do anything to stop the rot either, despite the names. Campbell is good in some films but here he is just a big block of wood that delivers his lines with all the charisma of bookcase and the urgency of a dead badger. His attempts to have chemistry with Sturges are admirable enough but he can't do it. He isn't helped by her just turning up and expecting it all to fall into place with no effort – she is poor throughout. Hudson is rubbish and LQ Jones only brings some cult appeal. As with the plot, delivery and effects – the actors are pointless and poor on the whole.

Overall this is a poor attempt to cash in on the interest in the film Twister in 1996. Of course since we now all know that that was poor as well, it is unlikely that Tornado will do much business as the years pass – only watched by those that lack the sense god gave them (me) or real Bruce Campbell fans. No effects, no plot of note, no characters and no performances = no point.