AIIW: Metal Tornado

Movie Stats:

Released 2011 (Canada)

Canadian, in English

Director – Gordon Yang

Stars – Lou Diamond Phillips, Nicole de Boer (aka Ezri Dax on DS9)

Disclaimer:

This review contains some spoilers. You weren’t going to watch this movie anyway, so keep on reading.

Plot Summary:

Clean energy company Helios Inc. is attempting to harness solar flares to convert into magnetic energy, which will be stored in gigantic batteries. These batteries can then be used to provide electricity for the whole entire world. Unfortunately, “something is wrong with the formula”! This creates “excess energy” that forms itself into two separate magnetic tornadoes (that pull in tons of metal debris), which eventually threaten both Philadelphia & Paris. Can Helios scientists Michael Edwards (Lou Diamond Phillips) and Rebecca Not-Important-Enough-to-Have-a-Last-Name (Nicole de Boer) stop this before it’s too late?

Bad Stuff:

A story that’s complete and utter implausible bullcrap, special effects so awful that I was embarrassed for them, dialogue that was laughably terrible, and, apart from the two main actors, ridiculously bad acting. Like, “Is that the producer’s kid/dad/auntie?” level of bad acting.

The worst part is that [SPOILER] except for the scientist who discovers that “something is wrong with the formula” in the beginning, no one dies in this movie (although I think maybe the lady who lied to a cop to get out of a ticket died when her car got pulled into one of the tornadoes, but they never said for sure). I thought they’d throw me a bone by giving me some fun, campy deaths. No such luck.

That lone lumberjack randomly out in the woods by himself? When his chainsaw went haywire and started floating around in the air by itself, I thought for sure I was going to get a decapitation. Nope. The chainsaw merely marks up his hard hat before flying away. The farmer out fixing a barbed wire fence by himself? I thought, “Ooo, gruesome barbed wire death! Bring it on!” No. He only almost gets crushed by his tractor.  

Seriously, movie, give me something to work with here.

Good Stuff:

It wasn’t the worst movie I’ve ever seen?

It’s unintentionally funny.

The Verdict:

It’s sort of fun to watch to make fun of. The husband and I tore it apart. I’d love to hear someone give it the MST3K treatment. However, I’m sure there are better ways for you to spend 90 minutes of your time. Maybe go outside, if it’s not currently 100-some-odd degrees wherever you are.

I give this movie 1.5 stars.

An Observation:

I’ve seen 3 movies recently – this one, The Dark Knight Rises, and The Avengers – which had a storyline about clean energy. In each of these movies, the clean energy source somehow goes awry and nearly destroys large portions of the world. I’m beginning to think that Big Oil is funding these movies. (Just kidding. Sort of.)