Into the Storm (2014)

[Jandrew]

One of about 57 reasons this movie failed for me is that almost all the characters were either so bland or so unlikable that I actually rooted for the tornadoes to kill them in the most painful ways possible... and in the end, something like 80% of these fuckers stayed alive.

lol. I gotta see this.

[Dementeleus]

This is a fun little B-movie almost fatally sabotaged by some poor story construction, weak characters, and a complete misuse of the "found footage" concept.

 

Bear with me for a moment, I'm gonna talk about a few different concepts and why I felt the movie kept hamstringing itself.

 

Let's start with "found footage". In theory, you use it to give an extra sense of reality to things, a "you are there" sense. But in order for that to be effective, you need to follow some rules: you need to use diagetic sound only (sound that would be recorded and captured by the camera). You also need some sense that the footage you're seeing was captured by the cameras in use. INTO THE STORM screws up both those rules: most of the time, it's using "found footage", but pretty regularly "non-found footage" is used within scenes. So almost immediately, you lose the sense of documentary reality because standard filmmaking shots pop in: insert shots of people from no existing camera source, establishing location helicopter shots (even more confusingly, sometimes these are tagged with a TV station bug and chyron as if they were news footage, and sometimes they are not). You don't have much variety at all in terms of visual quality, even though in theory the film is put together from some professional sources, some consumer cameras, some cellphones, some news footage, etc. Aside from the occasional Go-Pro camera attached to someone's body or helmet, there's no visual distinction between the different sources of footage: it all looks like high-end professional footage, all nicely color graded. So again, you lose the context of "found footage" and it just feels like scenes shot hand-held, except that the occasional lower-third ID and/or security cam chyron that pops up (or a character going over to pick up a camera, exchange a camera with another person, etc) just starts feeling awkward. The worst part is.... it's all pointless. You didn't need to make it a "found footage" film. It would've been just as effective (and not more expensive) had they simply ditched the concept and make it a conventionally-shot film. In fact, 99% of the footage wouldn't even need to change, you'd just have to strip out the occasional lower-third and chyron.

 

The reason the filmmakers felt justified the "found footage" concept is that the movie is a tribute to Pete, the driven storm chaser who sacrifices his life for the ultimate footage. But again, the way the whole film is assembled completely dismantles this concept. You can't present it as this "clip reel" documentary when (1) you have non-"documentary" footage throughout the movie and (2) the footage is all presented in exactly the same way. (Not to mention, there's plenty of music in the later scenes, which also is counter to the "found footage" concept as well. So the reveal that this is all what Pete died for falls completely and dramatically flat.) 

 

That's the only reason I can think of why they wanted to do it this particular way.

 

On to the characters: they're flat and cliched, nothing you haven't seen a billion times before, and unfortunately, the filmmakers proceed as if this isn't the case. They spend a great deal of time and effort trying to move the characters from Emotional State A to Emotional State B, when in fact we the audience got there almost immediately and so scene after scene feels redundant, dead, inert. The few moments that are interesting and/or compelling come exclusively from the adult actors (primarily the dynamics between the storm chasers), yet we spend a great deal of time on the school kids and they're so boring I found myself desperately wishing they would die 30 minutes into the movie. The storm chasers fall quickly into your standard pool of characters: the driven (and desperate) kinda-asshole seeking glory, the scientist, the nervous kid, the experienced kid, etc. Time and again we get a flat scene with dialogue laying everything out clearly only to have essentially the same character information repeated in the next scene.

 

For example: After the opening stinger, we start out on a driving scene establishing the storm chasers, that it's been a year since they've gotten footage of a tornado, that Pete is annoyed and anxious, that they have a lot of gear to shoot footage, and so forth. About 10 minutes later or so, we're presented with "raw" footage of a promotional video that the storm chasers started to shoot, and it tails off into another series of discussions about more or less the same information. But why not literally start the movie with a finished version of the promo? Make it slick, dynamic, edgy. Pounding music, stylish visuals, make it look cool. Then smash cut to the vehicles out in the middle of no where, Pete staring into the distance, desperately looking for storms, the rest of the crew bored, half-asleep. In just a couple of minutes you've established the entire dynamic in a fun, exciting way and now you're off and running without the dreary setups and re-setups of the same character beats.

 

And yet, there's one thing the movie does really well, and in fact so well I say it's worth seeing in theaters if you like this sort of thing, and that is the storm action itself. It's really dynamic, there's crazy destruction, the VFX are great, the sound design is awesome.... if only the rest of the movie hadn't been dragged down so low by their efforts to build all these characters. A fun B-movie doesn't need a lot of character dynamic or interplay, and the smart ones reveal character in the midst of action, not in endless asides delivered to camera as some awkward "time capsule".

 

C+

 

P.S. One last point. The movie makes an effort to give some sort of tribute to Pete, while missing the most obvious and easiest way to do this. He's last seen as the armored SUV crashes into the ground (presumably killing him)... why not show a rescue team recovering his camera and have some character, some news-anchor, some other authority figure, anyone, say "My God, this is the craziest and best footage we've ever seen of a tornado". Then his death would've had a bit more impact.

Edited August 18, 2014 by Telemachos

[Dark Jedi Master 007]

 

 

 we spend a great deal of time on the school kids and they're so boring I found myself desperately wishing they would die 30 minutes into the movie. 

Post of the Year...

[The Futurist]

Hahahahahahahahahahahaha.

Hipster.

[baumer]

This just shows that. TELE hates movies.

[Deep Wang]

This just shows that. TELE hates movies.

 

Tell us something we don't know!

[Gopher]

If I can find it and get to it in Toronto, deal.  But the difference is I like movies like that as well.  

 

It's on HV...ok, not problem...I'll get it.

 

Ball's in your court, big buddy.

[baumer]

I'll find it.....give me a week.  I'm kind of working a bit of overtime right now so I don't have a lot of time to rent/buy this just yet....but next week i will.

[Blankments]

It was pretty good actually. Wasn't great, but I wasn't expecting it to be. A perfectly enjoyable popcorn flick that I'll agree, the critics are too hard on.

 

I was pissed when the drunken assholes lived though

 

B

[Kvikk Lunsj]

I hated this movie. The characters were so stupid and the movie was just plain stupid. I wish the whole city would have been destroyed in the tornado. I have no idea how the whole city go out of the school in time.  This movie was long for a 90 minute film. I got so bored half way through the film. 

1/5

Edited August 29, 2014 by Snoopy of Suburbia

[Dementeleus]

In case anyone thought the firenado was a bit too unrealistic...http://io9.com/terrifying-images-of-whirling-firenadoes-from-all-over-1629469470

[James]

Good, good fun! Everything I was expecting from this movie was there. I damn love disaster movies!

 

8/10

[Lordmandeep]

Twister is amazing compared to this.

 

This was not a bad effort but this was a TV Movie.

[mattmav45]

Wife and I bought a bottle of wine last night to supplement/improve the viewing, and it didn't do a damn thing.

It's not offensive, but it is awful.

Edited January 16, 2015 by mattmav45

[Leyla]

great movie

(yep yep a biased Armitage fangirl is biased  )

but really great in Dolby Atmos

 

 

 

that I actually rooted for the tornadoes to kill them in the most painful ways possible... and in the end, something like 80% of these fuckers stayed alive.

haha completely oppositte for me

I usually get annoyed by kids esp in such movies but here everyone were likable enough I really worried for them & the payoff that most of the ppl stayed alive was worth it 

the old guy extra was my fav (his 'prediction' for the time capsule was quite realistic sounding   ) Happy he survived! 

[baumer]

I hated this movie. The characters were so stupid and the movie was just plain stupid. I wish the whole city would have been destroyed in the tornado. I have no idea how the whole city go out of the school in time.  This movie was long for a 90 minute film. I got so bored half way through the film. 

1/5

 

You're treading close to Tele and Gopher territory now....hating all movies you see.  

[Godzilla]

It felt like everyone half-assed it except the visuals department. It's like a high school project when everyone gets lazy except one person in the group who ends up doing most of the work. And that ending scene was one of the most ludicrous and out of place scenes I've seen all last year. It felt like a commercial you'd see in Lifetime. Lol and I love how the father would keep calling his sons by son. Like my son, or where are you son. LOL. 

 

I enjoyed it for what it was though. I give it a C. 

[Maxmoser3]

It's not that bad of a disaster it's fun and has some cool special effects and likable characters(the storm team characters and the others weren't too bad). But I liked the characters more in something like Twister or San Andreas for example but it's not bad but nothing amazing and it's a pretty good movie. So overall grade:B

[BourneFan #1]

This was a fun disaster film with great special effects. After reading Tele's post, I realized that the story was not that well thought out and the characters were bland. B-

[Maxmoser3]

It was pretty good actually. Wasn't great, but I wasn't expecting it to be. A perfectly enjoyable popcorn flick that I'll agree, the critics are too hard on.

I was pissed when the drunken assholes lived though

B

they fall off a tree though so they probably break some bones and don't call for medical help so they probably don't make it