Storm Cell

This one hurt. And I'm usually a sucker for really bad Twister ripoffs made for cable. We've seen this plot before, twice. Estranged parent-child relationship, because said parent is too devoted to chasing that big storm. Parent is obsessed with storms because of a tragedy in their childhood. Parent predicts The Big One will hit right where estranged child lives. Child doesn't believe them. Child has has several tense emo moments with parent. Big tornado predictably hits, key characters survive, and everyone is happy. See "Devil Winds" and "Tornado Warning" for this by -the-numbers plot as well. Amusingly, they use global warming for an excuse to "move" Tornado Alley to the pacific northwest so they could shoot cheaply in Vancouver. As expected, the tornado effects are lackluster. The CGI crew just rendered the same tornado for every scene. I think what really got to me was the darkness of the movie. By that I do not mean a grim undertone to the story... but rather how literally dark the image was throughout. I spent a lot of time straining to make out various details like character faces and locales. The environment around a tornado can be very dark, but this was done throughout the movie. I can only recommend this to people who didn't think it could get any worse than Atomic Twister.

I'm a storm chaser, which means I'm usually avid for any sort of storm-disaster movie, no matter how stupid. But this one not only wasted the fifteen minutes I spent watching it, it's compelling me to waste yet more time writing this review. That's how strongly I feel about it.

In this day and age, with so many weather websites available, there's no excuse whatsoever for a writer not to go see what a tornado looks like on radar--clue: It's not a hurricane! And FYI, storms do not growl. Chasers and storm fans and TV watchers, oh my, do yourself a favor and rent Twister again instead.

STORM CELL is a bad disaster movie even by TV movie standards. It stars Mimi Rogers (THE X-FILES) as a dedicated storm chaser who must fight against time to save her family from a series of super-powerful twisters that threaten to wreck much of middle America, yet the film fails to build on that premise at any point.

Due to budgetary constraints, no doubt, this film ends up more as a family drama than a disaster flick. Much is made of Rogers' obnoxious and stuck-up teenage daughter who keeps getting herself into peril, to the degree that I was hoping Rogers would simply cut her losses and forget about the dumb kid; no such luck.

Meanwhile, a few scenes show a twister wreaking havoc on some homesteads with the aid of some dodgy CGI. The two plots never gel, there's no plan on the part of the heroes, they just sort of amble from place to place and survive mainly through luck. It's all very boring and uninteresting; I expected something cheesier, and more entertaining, from this genre, but it's almost laid back in it's approach. Watch out for the great Michael Ironside in a cameo role.

But Mimi Rogers is usual awesome. Shame about everything else

About 30 years ago, eight-year-old Ryan Grantham (as "Little" April) and teenage sister Kristy Dinsmore (as "Little" Sean) are driving with their parents in Oklahoma during a terrible storm. A man foolishly stands on his truck and is struck down. They family stops and tries to save him, leading to even more tragedy… Presently, storm tracking professional Mimi Rogers (as "grown-up" April Saunders) specializes in the study of tornadoes and how to manage them safely. A single mom, Ms. Rogers has one daughter - pretty but bratty Elyse Levesque (as Dana). Ms. Levesque is rehearsing "Romeo and Juliet" at her high school when a storm hits, then blames her frantic mother for not arriving in time to provide comfort...

Somehow managing to refrain from slapping her ungrateful child, mother Rogers takes Levesque go to visit brother Robert Moloney (as "grown-up" Sean Saunders) in Seattle. Now a policeman, he lives with pregnant wife Tracy Trueman (as Molly). She's a good hostess. Rogers finds romance with local TV weatherman Andrew Airlie (as Travis Jones), an old college boyfriend. They have a secret. Levesque is attracted to new college boyfriend Ryan Kennedy (as Ryan Laswell), who likes his women willing and able - well, maybe not always willing. Naturally, a terrible "Storm Cell" threatens the entire cast...

This "Lifetime" TV-movie does not convince with the storm as a "monster" (complete with growling sound effects), which isn't used effectively with the surprise villain. You can see how it might have been better.

**** Storm Cell (3/19/08) Steven R. Monroe ~ Mimi Rogers, Elyse Levesque, Robert Moloney, Ryan Kennedy