Tornado!

Tornado!...

...you know, I really hate it when movie names have exclamation points in the titles. Like, what's the point? To add emphasis, to make it pop more? Is the audience member reading the VHS cover supposed to shout it in order to pronounce it properly? No, it's not pronounced "tornado", it's "TORNADO!!!", at the top of your lungs. Though, I think the proper reason as to why an exclamation point is in the title is to symbolize the shock of a tornado finally appearing in this film. You're sitting through this plaintive film that slithers at a snails pace, and you're sitting on the couch with your shirt off playing Angry Birds because there's absolutely nothing remotely interesting occurring on screen, and FINALLY a tornado shows up. So, it's like "hey, a Tornado!" because it's such a shock that a tornado finally appears in a film called Tornado!. Exclamation point, period? How do I write that? "!." or just "!" since it's the end of the sentence? See, it's just stupid.

Tornado(!) is a 1996 TV movie meant to blatantly cash in and rip off Twister, which came out two weeks before this film premiered. It happens to actually star some notable people, like Bruce Campbell, Ernie Hudson, and LQ Jones, among others. There have been some internet testimonies of people claiming this film actually played in some theaters, but it's never officially been confirmed and I dread anyone who paid money to watch this on the big screen. For people who hated Twister, I dare you to watch Tornado!. Its biggest flaw is that it's dull. So, so dull. Every time you think a tornado is about to appear, it just cuts to black and opens up to the next day. You're sitting at the edge of your seat, finally relieved that something is about to happen...and then it just cuts to somewhere else. It's basically the proto-Godzilla (2014) about 20 years earlier. In all actuality, there's only about 10 seconds of on-screen tornado action occurring in this film, and most of it can be seen in the trailer. For the remaining 89 minutes and 50 seconds, it's nothing but bad dialog and people doing nothing. It gets excruciating and torturous within 30 minutes. Even when the tornado is right in front of our characters, the camera doesn't pan around to let the audience see it; we just hear sounds of destruction and our casts' shocked expressions. I understand that the film is low budget, but filmmakers need to understand that they can't tease an audience with something they don't have the money to afford showing. Not even legendary coolmeisters like Bruce Campbell and Ernie Hudson can sweettalk this film to make it more bearable. Instead, they too just sit around waiting for a tornado to appear. Not surprisingly, the most interesting sequence is the one moment where we actually see the tornado as it wrecks havoc on a small town.

I hear people all the time exclaiming how Twister is such an awful film, and it really makes me wish they'd see this. Watching Twister after this will make the latter seem like 2001: A Space Odyssey. Twister may be dumb, but at least it's fun and spends about 90% of its runtime with cool tornado-related action sequences, and at least the characters do more than just talk about boring stuff. Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt's writing may get annoying, but at least they actually do stuff. Wanna see Bruce Campbell get a haircut? Wanna see Ernie Hudson watch TV? Wanna see Bruce Campbell driving while nothing is happening? Wanna sit around for 90 minutes waiting for a Tornado to appear? Well, Tornado! may be the film for you. The sad thing is that Tornado! isn't even the worst tornado film. Atomic Twister, Nature Unleashed: Tornado, Storm Cell, Storm Chasers: Revenge Of The Twisters, and Devil Winds are all much worse than Tornado!, and that's extremely unsettling because this is a bad, bad movie.

Get real. Any movie starring Bruce Campbell is expected to be a B-movie. The COOL thing about that here is that instead of its counterpart, Twister, they decided on something that looked real, rather than something that looked exciting. I haven't seen Twister since I saw it in the theater. It blew, and I didn't give a crap about any of the characters or the story. As far as I'm concerned, THEY ripped THIS off, and made it a "sensation" of CGI crap. The characters are more believable, as are the effects and the story. I may have rated this a 6, but Twister is about a 2...and only because of the flying cow and Bill Paxton is it not a 1.

"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.

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.

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