Into the Storm

Fresh from calling the shots as Thorin in the Hobbit trilogy, Richard Armitage has to play second fiddle to the angry elements in this white-knuckle adventure about tornados laying waste to a small American city. After a huge storm touches down, a professional storm chaser (Matt Walsh from TV's Veep) and a meteorologist (Sarah Wayne Callies from The Walking Dead) try to capture the unprecedented weather on camera, while local teacher Armitage has to put himself in harm's way to make sure his kids are safe. Director Steven Quale ramps up the tension with jaw-dropping CGI effects taking the viewer to the heart of Mother Nature at her most extreme. In comparison, the human aspect of the film relies too heavily on clichéd archetypes (mercenary thrill-seekers after film footage to sell for big bucks, troubled teens with distant fathers). They're bog-standard subplots that frustratingly interrupt the mighty bluster of the action sequences.