500 MPH Storm

Today is Thursday, and not just any Thursday, but the one which sees the opening of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, a film which will be contesting Iron Man 3 to be the biggest movie of the year.  While my wife (and proof reader, so heads up this could be a mess) is at the theatre taking in the extravaganza that is the story of Katniss Everdeen, I am at home trying to think of what could possibly be bigger than the sequel to The Hunger Games.

Brace yourselves, for the 500 MPH Storm is upon us.

I have reviewed some campy movies in the past, ones made by The Asylum Studios, and this is another such film.  The plot is around some sort of energy beam which causes storms.  Not just any storms, but big ass ones.  The kind that will rip you a new one, if you are not careful.  There is a family, and the father knows weather, so the movie follows them as they are humanity's only hope.  I think the army is involved... really, does the plot actually matter?  There is a 500mph storm involved!  That's what matters.

My father taught me when I was young about running serpentine to avoid gunfire (that lesson learned is thanks to The In-Laws), and it was nice to see this same strategy being implemented while driving a 4X4 to avoid a storm.  I guess driving in a direct line away from it, allowing for the most distance to be covered in the shortest amount of time, is not as smart as weaving all over the place.  By burning more gas and putting extra wear on the tires, the father was barely able to deliver his family from the death bringing hands of computer animated dangers being hurled from the deadly winds.

While talking about this film, there is no point talking about the acting, editing, or anything like that.  None of that is important, as this movie serves as almost a survival guide, using the actions of the characters to teach us what to do in such apocalyptic scenarios.  When the storm is destroying the city, the mother looks to get the upper hand by making sandwiches.  The teenage boy is convinced that if they can just get home (which they had to flee from because of the destruction and such) he can get on the internet and... we never get the end of his thought.  'Get on the internet and' - research what is going on?  Upload a virus into the storm?  We are never quite sure what he was gunning for.

The father's ultimate plan is to get to the top of a mountain, where no storm would dare try and get them.  The problem?  The reactor that makes the beam is going to melt down or something awesome like that, which will cause so many hurricanes that they would merge into a 'hypercane' - the dreaded 500 mph storm.  For having such a dire need to get to higher ground, they do a whole heck of a lot of not doing it, as they mostly talk about how crucial such action is.

When they finally get to 'higher ground,' the father drops them off at a safe location, which looks a lot like a low lying area (a shot later in the movie would confirm that the 'higher ground' is indeed in a valley) with plenty of loose objects that could fly around in event of high winds.  But, there are sticks laying around so the teenager can take a time out of this traumatic experience to practice his sweet stick fighting moves... to fight the hypercane?  Possibly, I suppose.  It turns out that his practicing was to no effect as he gets taken out by some airborne pine needles and a twig.

This movie has a metric ton of deadly special effects that people can run away from in slow motion.  In a movie with a quantified high speed in the title, we get slow motion... thanks for that, Asylum.  Wait, was not this dry, arid landscape flooded with raging water just one scene earlier?  Am I losing my mind?

I may have indeed been losing my mind, slowly, I may add, and not at the hypercane speed that I was promised.  The movie was a lot of fun, though it does slow down towards the end in an extended scene of what may be best described as high stakes geo-caching, as the family tries to triangulate the exact centre of the beastly storm.  Luckily for them, the exact centre of a near continent covering storm is within walking distance of the abandoned factory they are in, which was home to way too many scenes.

Well, if you are ever looking to kill some time in a lighthearted way then this is not an awful movie for that.  There are still plenty of better things you could do with your time, such as training in stick fighting as a form of disaster readiness.  Sigh... this is what I am talking about on the eve of one of the biggest movies of the year.

Cheesy Movie Rating - 3 out of 4 stars