Alien Tornado

I can't believe this got funded to produce. Bad acting, predictable dialog, poor script, and terrible cgi. I'm used to pure dribble from the SciFi network but this is so bad I couldn't watch it at all. It tries to be the X-files but is as trite, cliché ridden as I have ever seen. Avoid this as at all costs, pure waste of time. Everyone involved with this project should be deeply embarrassed. I plead the 5th--the 5th of bourbon it would it take me to get numb enough to sit through this crap. It has no redeeming values whatsoever. Who would even want to promote this? A Smurfs marathon could only rot your brain worse. I never write reviews but I couldn't be silent on this one.

We all know the drill on SyFy channel movies. You can't compare them to anything other than previous SyFy channel movies. With shoestring budgets and B & C grade actors (mostly C), they crank out their "original" movies with regularity and zero surprises.

Alien Tornado did not break this tradition. This one was just slightly on the low side of the scale. The script was ridiculous, the characters thoroughly unappealing (I'm used to that), and the CGI SFX were only average. Now that home PC's with the latest processors can do the third level CGI that SyFy utilizes, you'd think they'd use the savings to ramp up the writing or actor expenditures. They don't. This one didn't even have any former stars in a cameo role.

The only reason to watch these things is because you're stuck at home and nothing else is on. And, of course, because you can figure out the plot by the first commercial break, and after that you can leave the room for a few minutes at any time and not worry about missing anything vital to the story.

This one was so completely silly and contrived that even hard core fans of SyFy movies will be disappointed. Not to worry. They'll be punching out another one in a few weeks. Ice Twisters vs. Alien Tornado perhaps? Paul Birkett wrote both. You know he's thinking about it.

I had no illusions that this was a Oscar worthy blockbuster, but this movie is not one of the worst that Syfy has produced. This is a decent production that has comical acting and situations, CGI from the 1800s and matching bad guy uniforms. This movie definitely makes you groan at cheesy dialogue, scream in annoyance at the screen and ironically laugh at somber and tragic situations. Watch this when you have absolutely NOTHING else to do. You could do worse.

I'll be honest and say I wasn't expecting much from Alien Tornado, and that after seeing it it was neither better or worse than I was expecting. The coolest and most exciting set piece is the destruction of the city, there is some evidence tension and the effects are a step above the crude ones I was expecting in this scene. Jeff Fahey is also decent, as is the concept which is pretty original and showed potential for a watchable movie. However the rest of the movie doesn't show much promise. The effects are not the crudest I've seen but they're hardly great either. The editing is choppy at best, and the movie is dully lit. The script is very hackneyed and doesn't give the actors much to work from, the story is silly, contrived and dull, the characters are unappealing and stereotypical(a lot of them are severely underdeveloped as well) and Fahey aside the rest of the acting suffers from the banality of the writing. Overall, a bad movie but not terrible. 3/10 Bethany Cox

The usual silliness from the SyFy Channel. Jeff Fahey - who remains a solid, dependable stalwart of an actor, as always - plays a farmer who has to contend with tornadoes on his land. Except, of course, this being a sci-fi movie after all, these weirdly glowing tornadoes are actually electrified extraterrestrials!

Yes, it's as silly and as cheesy as you'd imagine from the title and premise, a film packed full of terrible special effects and worse acting. Aside from the aforementioned Fahey, viewers are treated to Kari Wuhrer (who looks like she's a fan of plastic surgery) as a glamorous stormchaser and David Jensen (complete with whiny voice) as a leader of some nefarious government agents also out hunting the aliens.

The action, when it occurs, is invariably disappointing, because the producers just don't have the budget to do justice to the premise. So viewers are left laughing along at the premise and enjoying the mildly diverting adventures. Yes, this is terrible, but also terribly inoffensive with it - just your average B-movie fun.