NYC: Tornado Terror
February 4, 2012 · 2 Comments
NYC: Tornado Terror
Twister meets "The Day After Tomorrow" in this actioner that finds the Big Apple under attack from vicious tornadoes caused by global warming. As a group of characters--including the city's deputy mayor, his meteorologist wife, and a heroic fireman--try to figure out a way to somehow calm the storms, they struggle to stay alive. Nicole de Boer, Sebastian Spence, Jerry Wasserman star. 90 min. Widescreen; Soundtrack: English; Subtitles: Spanish.
Suprisingly good!,
This was far far better than I was expecting. In fact, after Twister, this is the best tornado film I’ve seen (and I’ve seen ‘em all). Good characters, great action–not afraid to show disaster.
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|a lifeless, annoying film, with a few decent special effects,
Mini-twisters pop up around New York City, as a prelude to massive electrical tornadoes. Sounds good, but don’t be fooled by the cover. This cheapo, annoying TV movie could have been better.
So many things wrong with this inept film…
* FLAT ACTING. Nicole DeBoer was quite good in THE CUBE, so it’s surprising to see her give such a flat, one dimensional performance here. Her character loves her husband (yet no chemistry in the actors’ kisses), she struggles with the possible death of her niece — lot’s of stuff going on here. Yet DeBoer always performs flatly.
ALL the actors are flat, lifeless, one-dimensional. From the hero firefighter, to the evil NASA boss, to everyone
* I’m gonna blame the lousy SCRIPT and DIRECTING. Despite the characters’ struggles, they’re written as black-and-white stereotypes.
I don’t know what political axes this writer has to grind, but every character is either incredibly wise, brave, and noble — or craven and weaselly.
DeBoer plays a brilliant weather scientist who works for the City of New York. (Apparently, they have a weather department.) She’s smarter than NASA. NASA is portrayed as uniquely evil. The NASA representative is an evil idiot. DeBoer has a plan to stop the tornadoes with dry ice, whereas NASA wants to seed them with silver iodide.
DeBoer dismisses NASA as “They’re not scientists! They’re a bunch of bureaucrats!”
When the NASA guy overrules the mayor (who listens to DeBoer) the mayor accuses NASA of being “the military” and of them wanting to “maintain the illusion of civilian control.” NASA wants to call the shots, while pretending the mayor is still in charge.
Poor screenwriters often try to create “drama” by having the characters argue. But because they argue for argument’s sake, it comes off as pointless bickering. The good and bad guys in this film are always snapping at each other. We’re supposed to root for the “good guys,” but I can’t sympathize with their arrogant testiness.
The “good guy’s” self-righteous arrogance is annoying as hell. DeBoer’s husband has some city job, and takes over command of the city, essentially instigating a coup. But it’s okay. He and his wife are the only ones who can save the city. He sits in his weather command center barking pointless, obvious directives to his emergency vehicles. Things like: “They haven’t evacuated the library yet? Somebody put a fire under their ass!”
Just WHY anyone would be safer outside of the library building, with all those tornadoes in the streets, than inside of the library — or WHERE they are supposed to be evacuated to — is never addressed. The husband’s “life-saving” commands are vapid and pointless in the extreme. He’s dramatically barking commands for the sole purpose of being dramatic.
His pointless commands, and his wife’s seeding of the clouds (which she orders against NASA’s orders) save the city.
The junk science is weird. We’re told (with arrogant self-righteousness) that these mini-twisters are caused by global warming. What isn’t? Apparently not much. These mini-twisters also carry lighting inside. And they’re cold. A group of people freeze solid by one passing tornado. And balls of electricity emanate from these twisters.
* Speaking of the BAD DIRECTING, an electrical ball floats about a hallway. This woman stares at it, backing off. People scream to stand back. But this woman, separated from the rest, just wanders slowly around and about the electrical ball, keeping it a few feet in front of her, not looking too frightened. FINALLY, the electrical ball shoots her with lightning, so she fries.
She looked like an inept extra, wandering about, not getting any clear direction from the director as to what she should be doing or thinking.
BUT … is it fair to judge a film like this by the quality of the writing, acting, and directing? After all, you buy this film to watch special effects.
I’d have given this film 3 stars if the special effects had been great. They’re not. They start off okay. A few nice mini-twisters early in the film. Two people flung into the air. A small plane crash. A group of frozen people.
But we don’t see them freeze. Likewise, we hear dog howls, then see their empty leashes. Apparently the dogs had been sucked up by the tornado — which we DIDN’T GET TO SEE.
WORSE YET — DeBoer averts serious disaster. I’d thought all those brief, small, tornado effects were a buildup to colossal special effects of New York City being utterly destroyed over the course of 30 to 45 minutes — just like the DVD cover promised.
Instead — NOTHING! The self-righteous heroes take command of NYC and its emergency services, defeat NASA’s idiocy, and dissipate the tornadoes…
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