Marshal Phipps
The DVD cover art is very misleading, it depicts a tornado in city that hurls a car that is about to fall on an observing child, that never happens in the movie. What made me chuckle was the tag line "this movie will blow you away", the only thing this film does is blow my expectations away.This film is more about a family drama revolving around a tornado tragedy rather than something along the lines of a large scale disaster.While this film isn't bad it disappointing to me because of how the flashy DVD box cover art tricks the wandering eye. The tornado sequences is what allowed me to get through the film since that's what I've been wanting to see, for what the film is worth it's a decent drama film though it tends to stumble in some places.
Uriah43
As children "Liz McAdams" (Meredith Monroe) and "Ellie Wilson" (Pascale Hutton) are playing outside when a tornado appears. Racing back to their house Ellie watches as her mother is swept up into the cyclone and suffers from guilt and trauma from then on. Many years later Liz has become a meteorologist who has recently separated from her husband "Matt McAdams" (Cameron Bancroft) partly because of the traumatic experience she also lives with since that day. Anyway, as luck would have it, Matt has been working on a project to help predict bad weather systems and because of this he just happens to be in the same area as Liz when another extremely bad storm system appears with the capability of reproducing the same deadly results. Now rather than reveal any more of this film and risk spoiling it for those who haven't seen it I would just like to say that this made-for-television picture uses the same standard recipe as several other movies of this particular genre. That said if anyone is expecting something different or more exciting than previous films of this type then they will probably end up being a bit disappointed. Additionally, there isn't much action and the graphics could have used some improvement as well. To make up for these weaknesses the plot relies upon inter-personal drama and in that regard it managed to maintain my interest for the most part. Of course, others may or may not agree with my assessment and that is perfectly okay. In any case, while it certainly wasn't a great film by any means, I didn't think it was necessarily that bad either and I have rated it accordingly. Average.
innocuous
I can't say that this film is actually "awful." It's just not very good. There's not as much action as you might expect and the CGI tornadoes are pretty weak. (Everybody stands around in bright sunlight and a little wind comes up. The next thing you know, a tornado funnel that appears to be about 20' across just drops down into the meadow and pulls somebody away...very slowly. There's no sense of collateral damage, ferocious winds, or even darkened skies. No rain, hail, or flying debris. It's sort of a four-year-old's conception of a tornado.)This would be bad enough, but the "family story" side of it is also pretty maudlin. I don't know who originally broadcast this, but I'm guessing it was the Hallmark Channel. Absolutely no bite to it.Definitely not worth your time.
dbborroughs
I wasn't really gripped by this film and my attention wandered. I think the plot goes something like this: Little girl who lost her mother to a tornado grows up to be a TV weather person. She returns home and deals with the past and the present. At the same time the government is tentatively setting up an agency to monitor tornadoes. It all comes together in the end for big tornado that once again threatens the now grown up girl and her loved ones.Bland TV movie like story is a great deal of talk bookended by a tornado at either end. For me the film was lost when the tornadoes turned out to be rather weak CGI effects that never really look threatening. One would have thought that a film about tornadoes would have spent some money on making them seem menacing, but thats not the case. The rest of the film is okay but you really won't care because there is no pay off with a threatening storm.I'm take a pass.