SUPERCELL (2023)

SUPERCELL (2023)

Tagline: Chasing storms to find the truth, he discovered himself in the eye of danger.

(Drama, More Drama, Clouds, Lots Of Clouds) [PG-13]

In this one, William Brody decides the best thing for him to do is run away from home and try to find out what happened to his famed storm chaser father Bill Brody. William is a teenager hoping to follow in his father’s footsteps and believes getting his father’s weather diary is an invitation to pick up with his uncle Roy where his father left off. Roy is very reluctant to teach William the ropes of storm chasing, but when his boss starts trying to exploit William based on his father being famous, Roy takes on the role of mentor. As it turns out storm chasing has a dark side. 

To be honest, this movie feels like it was written to be a sequel to TWISTER then some things were changed at the last minute. Bill Harding from TWISTER shares the same first name as famed Bill Brody and even the stories behind both characters are nearly identical. Both characters also have an extreme side and one other thing in common, but I won’t give that away as a spoiler. You can tell pretty much right away that this thing is not going to be tornado driven. Instead, it's driven by William Brody’s thirst to do what his father did being pit up against a very loving, but fearful mother named Quinn convincingly played by Anne Heche (I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER). 

I think this whole movie might have come across better if it weren’t for the lead. I won’t rip on him as an actor overall, but Daniel Diemer’s delivery in this role is stiff as heck. There is nothing that makes him a character I am rooting for or want to hang out with. I did think Anne Heche was fine in this, but she's had better performances. It’s almost like Alec Baldwin got away with murder in this one as Zane. He pretty much just mailed this performance in even though he is playing one of the more interesting and weird characters of the bunch. Jordan Kristine Seamón plays Harper in this and it seems like they just really threw her in her to have someone for Quinn to talk to. Her performance is almost as bad as Alec Baldwin’s. As far as the standout, that would be Skeet Ulrich (SCREAM) does a great job in this as Roy and is nearly unrecognizable from his other more famous roles. 

The pacing in this thing actually worked for me, and I was told well before I saw this that there might not be very many supercells on this supercell tour (so I was prepared). The production is actually okay, but do not go into this expecting TWISTER-level production or a CGI-driven extravaganza. Neither is happening. I would look at this more like JAWS only JAWS is a tornado you get to see for 3 minutes of the entire movie. The rest of this thing is just a bunch of clouds. 

The script itself doesn’t suck, but I couldn’t get into this cast in these roles and the execution was very dull, which seems nearly impossible. It’s kind of like going on a stakeout where you actually have to sit in the car for 8 hours before the perp walks out with a sawed-off shotgun and a bag of Doritos so you can take him down. Then when it’s over, it’s just not all it was cracked up to be, the gun is fake and the dude is on his way to a Walking Dead Convention. 

Overall if you just really want to see every tornado movie out there this might be on a list for completists, but I can’t recommend it. 

This one gets a 3 out of 7. It is okay, but outside of the beautiful sky shots, there isn’t much to enjoy here. 

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