Alien Tornado

Giving a bad review to a SyFy movie is not really a challenge. It's so blatantly obvious thing to do that one has to think twice if it is even worth the time to type the bashing these films more often than not deserve. I'm beginning to feel like this is SyFy's strategy: keep churning out junk under the guise of light entertainment, because there are enough people that kinda enjoy passing their time watching these films and then there are those, like myself, who end up watching these in hopes something has changed.

Nothing has changed here. The images and the characters both are flat, the CGI is sub-par, and the script would again benefit from proofreading. Not that I don't trust the writers' English skills, but maybe a few more brains in the works would help in creating more passable builds of suspense, more pronounced motivations for characters etc. You know, a bit more oomph than tornadoes that are of alien origin coupled with the stock characters one can expect in such circumstances.

I've seen worse acting, and I've spent my time more foolishly, but to say that seeing a certain film is NOT the stupidest thing one can do is not really a compliment, now is it?

Jeff Fahey is the only reason to watch this movie. In fact, most of the movies Jeff Fahey leads or costars in are like that. Oh, wait a minute. I just thought of another reason to watch this movie.

Imagine your great Aunt Mildred sitting on her sofa in front of the TV with her friends Gladys and Harriet. They are sipping some tea which they spiked with a bit of whiskey and are giggling while nibbling on their sugar cookies. They are watching this movie and appropriately gasping when the tornadoes appear or when someone gets sucked up by a tornado (a comical vision which offers no real fright) or when the bad guy puts on his rough act with the good guy (serious overacting here by nearly everyone in the movie but for Jeff Fahey and the lady who played his daughter, Stacey Asaro). Great Aunt Mildred leans forward and shouts at the TV, "Aw, shut up ya big bully!" Friends Harriet and Gladys loudly agree between giggles and sips of tea.

If you want a B movie which has some good stuff with a few laughable things in it, this isn't it. There is no good stuff. But there's lots of laughable things in it. Watch it with Great Aunt Mildred. It will make her happy. Seriously. She deserves quality time with you.

Alien Tornado (2012)

** (out of 4)

Another epic from SyFy has a farmer (Jeff Fahey), his smart daughter (Stacey Asaro), a tornado blogger (Kari Wuhrer) and a small town cop (Willard E. Pugh) noticing that the latest tornadoes aren't being reported by the media and there's just something completely different about them. It turns out that aliens are actually controlling them to take out Earth for a numbers of reasons but the biggest is that they're tired of our Bandwith bothering them. Again, it always shocks me that so many people watch these SyFy films and then complain about their low-budgets, silly plots and all around "C" material. I mean seriously, you're coming to a movie called ALIEN TORNADO so why are you expecting something great or some sort of lost classic? This film is mainly going to appeal to those who enjoy low-budget movies that are cheesy and instead of delivering first-rate material they just offer up mild entertainment. There were a lot of entertaining things in this movie as well as a few interesting cast and crew members. For starters, Jeff Burr is best remembered for LEATHERFACE: THE Texas CHAINSAW MASSACRE III and it was good seeing him back making a movie. He handles the material a lot better than most of these SyFy movies and I thought he at least kept the thing moving without it getting too slow. It was also great seeing Fahey. People complain about these movies but at least they give some good character actors a chance to be a lead. I thought Fahey was very good in his part and he did a very believable bit. He just wasn't picking up a paycheck and that's a lot more than most can say. I also thought Asaro, Wuhrer and Pugh were good in their parts and the four worked extremely well together. While the screenplay doesn't build up their characters much, the actors at least give strong enough performances to where you can care for them. The special effects of the tornadoes are quite cheap but I did like the design with the neon green lights. The story itself was quite silly and never really made too much sense. This was especially true during the final when we're given the explanation of what's going on. Again, if you're looking for a sci-fi masterpiece then it would be best to check out 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. If you're looking for cheap entertainment then that's why movies like ALIEN TORNADO are made.

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 watched because, Hey I'm a big fan of Kari Wuhrer, no matter what she is playing in. Well, she actually hasn't But, really she had two different outfits on when she got in the car she had white top and blue jeans, get's out the car and has a pink top and black pants...come on who is in charge of wardrobe..CUT!! But, seriously all and all not great, but not exactly horrible.. The special effects were good, the storyline was original.. The acting was OK, it's SYFY what do you expect, those of us that like Sci-Fi watch it because we like the idea of it all, not because of the realism.. So sit back and if you watch the movie, just watch it for what it is.. Entertainment...