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?

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.

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.