Last week I decided I wanted to go see the new weather disaster movie “Into the Storm” which follows a documentary crew and townspeople and their chronicles of a massive tornado outbreak.
I, of course, thought, hadn’t we done this before a few decades ago with “Twister”? I went with an open mind but a big assumption that Hollywood would really botch the meteorology. {That’s what meteorologists do when they go watch movies about weather).
Since I am not a professional movie critic, I will break this down as a regular moviegoer and a meteorologist.
First, let me say that this movie is pretty intense and probably not a good choice if you have small kids, especially if they have an anxiety about thunderstorms and bad weather. There is quite a bit of death and destruction in the movie.
Now, the good…..the special effects were really quite good. The tornadoes depicted and the damage and destruction seemed very realistic to me for the most part.
Like every good disaster flick, there are personal side stories, and in “Into the Storm” the side stories kept my attention, were, in some cases, heartwarming.
Throughout the movie, I found myself hoping for the best for some of the characters. As an aside, a few of the characters provided some well-timed comic relief through the movie. Like any good movie, there is always a character that is unlikeable but I was able to appreciate his perspective and his role in the film.
Now, onto the “not so good”….The meteorology…..ugh….pretty bad. Yet, I did read that they had meteorologists consult the filmmakers. Their pay must have run out.
The main character was a meteorologist who had a PhD. She was a good character but was essentially clueless about the weather. She kept referring to the significant weather system that was producing tornadoes as a “Storm Front.”
It is true that well communicating meteorologists should try to simplify things when providing a weather forecast to the general public but she was discussing plans with the film crew and storm chasers.
Even an “amateur” meteorologist knows that there is no such thing as a storm front. There are cold fronts, warm fronts, occluded fronts, stationary fronts. Those can all lead to tornado producing thunderstorms.
In Oklahoma where this movie took place, a dry line, is often the cause. Frankly, referring to it as a storm system would have been 1,000 times better. There was also a bad reference to Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Sandy, and the Joplin tornado outbreak that indicated tornadoes could now form in Los Angeles or Chicago.
There were two problems with that statement. First, tornadoes can, do, and have formed in Chicago and second the previously mentioned natural disasters aren’t related to each other.
There were some other minor statements but they were really quite insignificant to the scene and the plot. Unlike “Twister”, however, there were only a few opportunities to get it wrong meteorologically. So, the inaccuracies didn’t take away from the movie.
The movie did have quite a bit of cliché and cheese but what disaster movie doesn’t.
Overall, I was able to ignore the bad science and frankly enjoyed the movie. I give it an EF 3.5 out of 5 on the Enhanced “Fujita Film” scale.