Face à la tornade

with you people? You decide to watch a movie called Metal Tornado and expect a great masterpiece? On the SyFy Channel? This move delivers exactly what it is supposed to deliver. Entertainment. Granted, there are better movies of this same type out there, with a little more excitement, but this one isn't all that bad. That would be the only fault I could find is that it drags in some spots. I did not expect to watch a movie that had a great grasp of physics when I saw the title.

I got just what I expected from a SyFy channel movie. I recommend it if you are having a 'bad movie night' and keep in mind where the film comes from.

Well, just given the title of this movie you already know what you are in for. And true enough, this movie delivered exactly what was expected.

The storyline alone was so implausible, and it was really hard to buy into what was happening. Throughout the movie I was curling my toes every time I saw that electromagnetic tornado. It was just such a bad concept.

As for the cast in "Metal Tornado", well the only face I recognized was Lou Diamond Phillips. Now I am not one to judge his selection in roles in movies, but "Metal Tornado", for real? The people in the movie were doing good jobs with their roles, it was just the story that was halting and dragging everything down.

There are lots of disaster movies out there, and there seem to be no real middle ground. The disaster movies are either super awesome with amazing effects, or they are quite the opposite; disasters in themselves. "Metal Tornado" must be said to be in the latter of the two categories. There are far better disaster movies available out there, and "Metal Tornado" is good for only less than mediocre entertainment if you are really, really into disaster movies and have nothing better to do.

Honestly, then I have seen worse disaster movies than "Metal Tornado", but still, it was hardly worth sitting through from start till end.

Trying to find a new, much more powerful way of using solar energy, scientists are setting free a magnetic field which roams across the country, whirling around every kind of metal thing, until the effect is a metal tornado which destroys towns almost like a very big lawnmower. Every time the hero is asked just how scientific the whole thing is, he says something like "No time to explain now", and starts to run. So much for that. Following the clichés of the genre, there is a rebellious genius, warning that a catastrophe is near, and an evil business man who wants to hush the whole thing up even at the cost of some lives. With increasing power of the storm, they have to work together and find a possible solution, though.

Yes, it's a typical genre movie going by the checklist what's got to be in there, but still it was better than I expected. It was wise just to put a town in Pennsylvania in danger, not having to save the whole world this time. A parallel event in Paris is also described, the Eiffel tower being a perfect choice for any catastrophe related to magnetism, but since all the main characters are in the US, this string of the story remains pale.

Even if the special effects are very, very cheap - such as rattling a shelf with tin cans to show the tornado is approaching - it looks okay for a TV production. Always keep in mind we are talking about small budget TV here, comparisons to Hollywood blockbusters with their enormous technical capabilities are therefore neither reasonable nor fair. Taking that into consideration, I vote 6 of 10.

First of all, it's a stinker. Secondly, it's a Canadian stinker. Fans of science-fiction pretty well agree that nobody has ever made a good sci- fi movie and there is nothing in this movie to challenge that axiom. But this has the added handicap of being a bad Canadian sci-fi movie. The story line is silly and predictable. The acting is wooden and clichéd. But even being awful could be forgiven if they had not used the Ottawa Valley to masquerade as Pennsylvania. Have these people no shame? They drape American flags over obviously eastern Ontario architecture and then run credits at the end about all the government support. This must be as big a source of puzzlement to foreign audiences as it is of embarrassment to Canadian ones.I suppose the problem is that our brilliant movie people (directors and actors both) go to Hollywood, leaving only the hacks and greenhorns to slurp at the public trough while grinding out artless and unoriginal bumpfh like this and posing as artists. This movie made me bored. It made me embarrassed. And it made me mad!

"Metal Tornado" (2011) is another Syfy creature feature, although this time the "monster" is -- you guessed it -- a metal tornado, a magnetic vortex that attracts an increasing amount of metal objects (cars, toasters, etc.) and moves about according to an iron vein under the earth.

Aside from the protagonist Lou Diamond Phillips and Kate Drummond, the latter as a barely seen biker babe, the cast is blasé (although the youth who plays Diamond's son is good). Nicole de Boer is also on hand.

As noted in my title blurb, "Metal Tornado" is surprisingly well done for a made-for-TV creature feature; unfortunately it's unmemorable. There's nothing about it that makes it standout from the scores of similar TV movies. Although it tries to work up suspense, it lacks drive, and it's definitely NOT horrifying. Ultimately, it just comes across as hackneyed and forgettable.

"Metal Tornado" is only worth viewing if you have a preference for one or more of the cast members and you have an unquenchable hunger for these types of trite movies.

The story takes place in Pennsylvania, with many shots of Philadelphia (and some of Paris), but the film was shot in Ottawa.

The runtime is 90 minutes.

GRADE: C-