Metal Tornado

Metal Tornado

Upon seeing the trailer of this film I wasn't expecting too much, halfway through watching the film I realized this ain't bad. The nice mix of an interesting plot, occasional bouts of humor (like the flying chainsaw), believable acting, decent special effects, and many sequences that creates tension makes for an entertaining B movie. I was very pleased with this film, I got my moneys worth and this film exceeded my expectations.

Lately I notice a trend in IMDb.Folks either rate a movie 7 and above,or 1.There is nothing in between.The phrase 'the worst movie I have ever seen" comes up more and more often.Although I admit this movie is not good it's not the worst movie I have ever seen.If you want to see a movie that has the production values and quality of Shawshank Redemption for example this is not the movie for you.So it happened that I was in mood and at a time that I wanted to see something "lighter", and this movie was it.It's a low budget flick that it doesn't pretend for a moment to be a blockbuster.It has decent acting,good continuity,and a sub par script.And what is it with the sci-fi criticism anyway?.All of a sudden people are bothered terribly by the "downloading of energy"but not bothered that the crue of Enterprise usually travels at 7-9 times the speed of light.You know there is a reason why these movies are called science FICTION.Having also seen the atrocious Super Cyclone I am not ready to jump the bandwagon and call this movie the worst i have ever seen.

"Metal Tornado" (2011) is another Syfy creature feature, although this time the "monster" is -- you guessed it -- a metal tornado, a magnetic vortex that attracts an increasing amount of metal objects (cars, toasters, etc.) and moves about according to an iron vein under the earth. Aside from the protagonist Lou Diamond Phillips and Kate Drummond, the latter as a barely seen biker babe, the cast is blasé (although the youth who plays Diamond's son is good). Nicole de Boer is also on hand. As noted in my title blurb, "Metal Tornado" is surprisingly well done for a made-for-TV creature feature; unfortunately it's unmemorable. There's nothing about it that makes it standout from the scores of similar TV movies. Although it tries to work up suspense, it lacks drive, and it's definitely NOT horrifying. Ultimately, it just comes across as hackneyed and forgettable. "Metal Tornado" is only worth viewing if you have a preference for one or more of the cast members and you have an unquenchable hunger for these types of trite movies. The story takes place in Pennsylvania, with many shots of Philadelphia (and some of Paris), but the film was shot in Ottawa. The runtime is 90 minutes. GRADE: C-

...if you imagine it as a porno. It is seriously so cheesy, you expect someone to just take their clothes off any second. It's one of those movies where you think you've seen that actor in another movie, but naw, surely someone in this movie wouldn't have ever had another role, but NO!! These actors were literally in other movies/shows! Its so bad, you expect this to be a YouTube film! Literally save yourself the money and find something on youtube to watch, you'll be much happier. All in all though, if you like B-movies.... stay away. This classifies as Z-list, right up there with "A Grave Mistake." However if you are into Z-listers, be my guest... I sat through it all because it deserves a fair chance and I like cheesy movies, but don't expect anything more. Seriously, it would've done better as a porno.

I cant believe this film was released ! I was bitterly disappointed in this film and was shocked at the severe poor quality of the script and acting, and not to mention the sets they created such as their control centre computer room which seemed like it had been thrown together for a kids game show with wires hanging everywhere and switches and routers not connected anywhere, and the scene where Rebbecca tries to fix the switch and it wasn't even plugged in on the back lol which made me laugh so much, special effects were pants and the ending was shocking and typically American aimed !! and if i wanted to see so much cheese i would have gone to my local cheese curling factory.

You can't expect much from a seriously low budget movie with a seriously naff concept. I bought this on DVD in an end-of-line shop on 50% discount, so I think I got a good deal for my €0,75. Okay. The plot. Barely a plot, there's a bunch of badly rendered satellites that take energy from a solar flare and convert it to a sort of blue magnetic pulse that is blasted down to a ground station where it is picked up by an array of things that look like a cross between a television aerial and the framework thing that holds my tent up. If you're busy gagging right now, please disable the scientific part of your mind for this movie runs on "looks good on screen" rather than any sort of coherent logic. During the first run, something goes wrong, lights flash, nerdy people look worried. Some sort of twirling blue magnetic field wanders off from the array, then everything calms down. Yes, I said a blue magnetic field, for this is obviously a parallel universe where magnetic fields are visible. That'd be kinda cool, imagine science class. Anyway, this magnetic field turns out to be a tornado (yes, really!) sucking up metal things as it goes. I don't really see I needed to mention this review was spoilers because, you know, clue in the title. But with IMDb's scary-looking blacklist message, I'm not taking risks. There's the scientist, the greedy company big-cheese who wants to cover it all up, the hapless civilians, the "will we save the town/the capital/the world/etc" question. I think you pretty much know how this will go, these sorts of movies rarely and with "...and humanity was extinct" because that would be a downer. So, since this review contains spoilers, I will point out some of my favourite parts. Firstly the girl was pretty cute which is always a good thing, but the rebellious boy? Didn't buy it. Special kudos to the girl for not only being able to help lift a massive lump of concrete, but to do so wearing high heels. Then there's the hard-ass biker chick who is about as hard-ass as the boy (in other words, not). I almost choked on my tea when they had a shot of the tornado with all its metal crap flying around and there was the chainsaw, still running. What? Actually it was pretty funny. Like the tornado sucking up metal objects like cars and mobile homes, but curiously leaving wooden structures intact because we know well that wooden houses don't contain nails or wiring or water pipes. I guess the budget didn't extend to that sort of thing. Then one destroys huge swathes of Paris, but nobody seems overly concerned because, hey, we saved Phili. Not to mention that there's no significant ore deposit leading to Paris. According to the so-called science, the tornado should have ravaged the Lorraine region with its significant ore deposits. However, having said all of this, I can say that the "Metal Tornado", on the whole, was an enjoyable hour and a half. I'm just not sure they intended for it to be a comedy!

Then you have to throw all logic right out the window and that's exactly what they did with this movie. I get annoyed when people make films that are based around science but then get the science wrong. In this film, there are some blatant mistakes like the dome part of a silo on a farm that gets ripped off by the 'magnetic tornado' yet that would not happen in 'reality' because the domes on silos are made of aluminum which is not magnetic. Also, you can't 'download' energy from anywhere and quickly 'store' it, at least not currently and this movie is filmed in the here and now so the entire basis is impossible. Now for the 'evil entrepreneur' who runs this fictitious power company in the film called 'Helios'. I guess since the film company that made this is based in Ottawa, this shows what part-time government employees who have little film production companies think 'entrepreneurs' are all about, evil men that will do anything, even kill employees who find design flaws in their systems. Most of the acting was quite good, Lou Diamond Phillips and Kate Drummond were stand outs. I can't understand why they chose Nicole de Boer for the main role when they could have used Kate Drummond -- it makes no sense but then neither does a tornado made out of metal... or sharks etc. The small part by Camille Solari was humorous. They should have just pulled out all the cheese and gone all in and made the chainsaw that gets magnetized at the start of the film and seems to develop a mind of it's own, go a frigging killing rampage. Why not -- the whole thing was so unbelievable that they could have just done anything with it at that point. Most of these films would make far better comedies than sci-fies if they would just take them in that direction.

I would like to rate this at 7.5, but since there are few reviews and it needs a slight boost, I am rounding it up to an 8. Compared to other disaster blockbusters of spurious scientific plausibility, I actually dug this movie! The special effects, although I am not an animator or anything and love cool effects no matter what generation of film making they are from (e.g. Star Trek TOS & Star Wars), were actually rather cool. Lou Diamond Philips did a good job, and I thought the soundtrack was reasonably well done as well. In fact, in my opinion, the soundtrack exceeded B-movie standards. Don't get me wrong - this was not a Burwell, or a Zimmerman soundtrack but hey - it was pretty good!!! Also, a lot of the scenes had great composition visually, and were very clear and detailed. I don't know that much about the technical aspects of filming motion pictures, but I do recall that there had been some advances in the 80s that allowed for a greater range of color or something, but that resulted in an overall darker feel. This movie was apparently made with the latest filming technologies and the quality of the footage produced was extremely good in my opinion. Overall, the movie had a good solid plot, and its pace was quite good. I would have to say that both the director and the composer worked well together in this regard, and that if anything could be improved, with regard to the current budget of the film, that it would be the overall script. SPOILERS: The humorous bits were things like when this garden hose hovers in the air like a cobra & when a girl in high heels helps lift a concrete pylon off of some kid's leg a little too easily (something like that would weigh easily over 200 pounds!).

Obvious plot. Ham acting. Terrible special effects. Awful one liners. 'What happens in this office stays in this office'. 'The Vortex has been destroyed... but it was too late for Paris'. And the Pièce de résistance..... Old computer graphics to notify you which part of the world the Metal Tornado is currently trashing. What is there not to like? This is an excellent Sci Fi film with all the ingredients of a great B movie. The only issue I have is that the director may not know of his genius and some of the direction was not meant to bring out the best wooden acting I've seen for a while. Days of our lives type pauses...... And then cut to the Helios World Office in France for an update on the current situation there..... Oh no not the Eiffel Tower! Independence Day bonus points for that. Nicole de Boer and LDP may need a new agent. Totally out of place in this film.