This movie has been out for a few weeks, but I got around to going to see it this evening.
It's not too bad, I'd probably grade a B- or a C+.
It's a movie that plays out the usual cliches you'd expect from a disaster movie like this and, naturally, all of these cliched plot-lines are setup in the first 20 or 30 minutes, which are pretty painful. Once the storms, and thus action, hits it's pretty good with some great visuals.
The biggest problem I have with the movie is that it tries to set itself up as one of these "Found Footage" movies but it doesn't really fully dedicate itself to the concept. There's more than a few times in the movie where the perspective shifts from the camera of character to the usual omnipotent camera of movies.
The FF stuff has certain aspects to it you have to accept, that people would continue to film this stuff well past the point it's logical to do so. (Like say when you're trapped in a storm drain and near drowning) Also most of the FF movies at least has some premise of how the footage was found, usually in the form of a recovered camera or storage medium. There's a few points in this movie where there's a BIG question of how the video was recovered a camera that was clearly destroyed or at least lost beyond any hope of recovery.
The movie seems to want it both ways, it wants the Found Footage thing, which *could* work in a tornado-chaser movie as they do carry with them cameras, have cameras mounted on their vehicles and likely would record things in dangerous situations, but there's a few other story elements and stuff in this movie where the Found Footage thing doesn't hold up as well. (Two of the characters are carrying cameras doing a video -diary for their senior class' time capsule to opened in 25 years. But there's plenty of points where they're recording past the point where it's logical. Not to mention a point where a camera is able to pick-up a sotto-voiced conversation from across a busy school lunch-room/AP room, or a conversation that'd otherwise not be audible to a typical camera's microphone.
To say nothing of the battery life of these cameras, their ability to withstand water damage, hail damage and fall damage.
And at one point a character is able to have a very clear conversation with another character's voice-mail box, even though he only is able to get one bar's worth of signal on his phone. Right.
Again, fun movie, very good visuals -wish I could've see it in 3D- and the action/tornado stuff is good once it starts. But dealing with the characters and plots playing out pretty much every disaster movie trope is sort-of annoying and the "Found Footage" angle isn't used well and is very inconsistent.
It's not too bad, I'd probably grade a B- or a C+.
It's a movie that plays out the usual cliches you'd expect from a disaster movie like this and, naturally, all of these cliched plot-lines are setup in the first 20 or 30 minutes, which are pretty painful. Once the storms, and thus action, hits it's pretty good with some great visuals.
The biggest problem I have with the movie is that it tries to set itself up as one of these "Found Footage" movies but it doesn't really fully dedicate itself to the concept. There's more than a few times in the movie where the perspective shifts from the camera of character to the usual omnipotent camera of movies.
The FF stuff has certain aspects to it you have to accept, that people would continue to film this stuff well past the point it's logical to do so. (Like say when you're trapped in a storm drain and near drowning) Also most of the FF movies at least has some premise of how the footage was found, usually in the form of a recovered camera or storage medium. There's a few points in this movie where there's a BIG question of how the video was recovered a camera that was clearly destroyed or at least lost beyond any hope of recovery.
The movie seems to want it both ways, it wants the Found Footage thing, which *could* work in a tornado-chaser movie as they do carry with them cameras, have cameras mounted on their vehicles and likely would record things in dangerous situations, but there's a few other story elements and stuff in this movie where the Found Footage thing doesn't hold up as well. (Two of the characters are carrying cameras doing a video -diary for their senior class' time capsule to opened in 25 years. But there's plenty of points where they're recording past the point where it's logical. Not to mention a point where a camera is able to pick-up a sotto-voiced conversation from across a busy school lunch-room/AP room, or a conversation that'd otherwise not be audible to a typical camera's microphone.
To say nothing of the battery life of these cameras, their ability to withstand water damage, hail damage and fall damage.
And at one point a character is able to have a very clear conversation with another character's voice-mail box, even though he only is able to get one bar's worth of signal on his phone. Right.
Again, fun movie, very good visuals -wish I could've see it in 3D- and the action/tornado stuff is good once it starts. But dealing with the characters and plots playing out pretty much every disaster movie trope is sort-of annoying and the "Found Footage" angle isn't used well and is very inconsistent.
