Jamie Marshall is a storm chaser who loses her husband Jim at the beginning of the movie as both are chasing a storm. Two years later,she is too dedicated to her job; people she trains often quit because she is too tough. She also sees no need for rules and she has a real attitude problem. Yet her superiors still want to send her to investigate a tornado in Colorado, in an area where such storms never happen.
Wallace Houston, who is in charge of FEMA's efforts, is warned about Jamie's behavior, and she soon finds out she was right to be concerned. Independent-minded Jamie hates having to bum a ride from Will, one of the FEMA workers. Will, whose girlfriend Melanie wants him too commit and stay in one place, can't stand Jamie. Jamie despises him too, so...
The writing at the beginning of this movie seemed pretty pathetic. Later, it got better when there is action rather than dialogue, or when the dialogue concerned matters other than weather. Once Jamie suspected the Pine Feather nuclear facility of being responsible for drastic weather changes, I thought things were going to get a whole lot better. There was more action as the movie progressed, but not much until the very end. And something else happened in the second half: more comedy. Some of it may have been unintentional, but it was entertaining nevertheless. Certain events near the end would have made a whole lot more sense if this had been a satire.
The visual effects were pretty good, especially on Jamie's computer. Nothing one would expect to see on Oscar night, and not particularly realistic, but plenty scary. Stock footage of storms and their aftermath, and of a major fire that destroyed homes, added some to what little realism there was.
Still, this wasn't bad enough to be on anyone's top 10 list of all-time bombs. That's about all I can say.
