Melissa Thompson

Effective. Fire is terrifying. The emotional toll on everyone had to be huge.

I went in with low expectations and was very pleasantly pleased. It’s not perfect by a long shot but I gave it 5 stars for what it is supposed to be, a fun action movie good for the family and fans of seeing the underdogs shine. Viola Davis makes a very effective action hero in the vein of Harrison Ford, letting you see her bleed and feel the emotional toil her fight to survive and to save her family takes on her. There are plot holes in the bad guy’s scheme that ignore real world actions a government would likely take (like halting the stock market when all the other ones start tanking) but I was enjoying the character interactions too much to care.

When the original movie came out I was certain two hours of weather wrangling would feel silly and foolish. The 1996 movie proved me wrong on every level, but this movie, much to my dismay, picked up the torch of my previous low expectations. The action looked good but the characters were cliche and flimsy and the writing was formulaic and lacked believability both in the science and in how real people behave. The script allowed for no emotional weight despite hanging a tragic college age backstory to Kate in the opening scene and later lingering on the devastating results after the storms. But the destruction was just set decoration. Instead of feeling the human pathos, the storm chasers were the focus not the victims, like we were supposed to be sooo moved that they’d pause the mission and walk around the rubble looking for a lost dog (neither the dog are owner are ever even seen) Yes one crew gave away a couple cases of water, snacks, and t-shirts with the influencer’s face on it, but I was left embarrassed by the savior complex wafting off them. The choices to help felt rote, robotic and insincere . Even the villain was weak. Then there was the science part of the plot. I cringed over the absurdity of it but was willing to play alone. Of course they then contradicted their own established rules in the big save moment. The script has no respect for the audience or even the people in the movie living in Tornado Alley. Apparently the only way these citizens can find shelter is if out-of-towners tell them what to do. I feel dumber having watched this.