NYC: Tornado Terror (2008)

A very predictable TV movie dealing with a disaster striking a leading US city. This time it's New York and electrically-charged super-tornadoes are to blame, leading to much destruction and chaos, albeit on a super-low B-movie budget.It's fair to say that NYC: TORNADO TERROR offers nothing that hasn't been done before, and better. The special effects are dodgy, the characters are cardboard and the acting wooden. There isn't even a Michael Ironside or Lance Henriksen hanging around to bring a certain quality of gruff gravitas to the proceedings.And yet, and yet, this isn't the worst I've seen. It's better than the same director's METEOR STORM, for instance. It helps that there are some unintentionally funny scenes, like when the group of survivors are menaced by a ball of lightning INSIDE a tower block. The silly special effects are easy to laugh at, as are the attempts to build a sense of overwrought menace. NYC: TORNADO TERROR is certainly a wretched production but one that provides a few laughs if you're in the right mood.

So I'm usually up for watching a good action flick. But this one just kills. Literally if the acting wasn't bad enough the burning of my eyes from the crappy special effects should be a good idea how bad this movie was. I know that I am never going to get back that 3 hours of my life. The red spot when you saw it as one person commented really did remind me of something you would see on Star trek the original series. I would not be recommending this movie to anyone. Yet another Canadian movie that for some reason they can't have it happen in a Canadian city always has to be the good old USA that has to save the day give me a break. No offense meant.

So the special effects weren't special -- well, the lightening and St. Elmo's fire were pretty good. And why send up an F-117 Nighthawk as a cloud seeder? Why not, it's a movie. Hey, they coulda used an SR-71 Blackbird. That is the best looking aircraft ever. Could something that looks like a mini-MLRS reach 65K ft? Well, maybe. Is the science legit? Just as legit as global warming. If you think this was bad science, be sure you miss "Meteor Storm." The acting, particularly from the principles was unexceptional, but quite reasonable for the genre. I recognized Sebastian Spence, but I absolutely missed Nicole de Boer as Dax from "Deep Space Nine." She was, once, a hottie.Plot, well there has been a lot worse. I was a little surprised that the eminent meteorologist didn't recognize a dust devil when she saw one. Girl's gotta get out of the city more. Actually, for this kind of flick it was amazingly cliché free. I mean, nobody got stuck in the elevator (again, don't see "Meteor Storm" if you don't like disaster flick clichés -- it is rife with them). I got a little bored with the kids wandering around in the tunnel -- do they really have those on Liberty Island? But the potential boyfriend got fried. I mean, those two did not have a happy ending. How outré is that?

de Boer stars as a meteorologist who witnesses something unbelievable and (no surprise, since she's the lead) is the only one who can provide an answer as to what's going on. She can even provide a solution to the problem, but (big surprise here) the mayor thinks she's a fruitcake and there's no real threat to the city.Usually someone like de Boer is what attracts me to a film like this, as I liked her when she co-starred in the final years of "Star Trek: DS9." But I'm a weather freak when it comes to tornadoes and I usually watch whatever film comes on and I see it in the guide. I apologize for the sarcasm as far as "no surprise...big surprise," but it seems like film writers and directors can't seem to get your attention unless it happens in a city like New York City. About the only thing that I find real is the attitude of the mayor and I found myself being reminded of the mayor of New York in "Ghostbusters." I guess that's why they need to make this sort of thing happen in NYC, as anyone in the central part of the US, who live with tornadoes every summer, realize the threat, but you need millions and millions of people in a centralized area to not take cover when something like this would happen.There's no way I could give a movie like this anything above two stars. It ranks right up there with the movie I saw about volcanoes in the Big Apple last year!