Alien Tornado AKA Tornado Warning (2012)

Why do I keep doing it to myself? Why, why, why? I saw the title, Alien Tornado, and I thought that I might end up enjoying this in the same way that I've enjoyed many other disaster movies and creature features shown on the SyFy Channel. I'm an easily pleased kind of guy, so it probably wouldn't be THAT painful. How wrong I was.

Alien Tornado is yet another made-for-TV movie that tells you exactly what it's all about in the title. Aliens invade Earth, attacking the planet while hidden in tornadoes. That's it. Which means that you get the usual style for this type of movie - a shaking camera, some poor CGI causing destruction, some strained moments between characters that it's hard to care about - with less of the fun factor than usual.

Jeff Fahey is the grizzled father who ends up losing plenty to an unexpected tornado, and Stacey Asaro is his daughter, a young woman who is desperate to get out of the small town and start her life in a big city. Kari Wuhrer is Gail Curtis, a weather expert who ends up heading to the small town where all the activity is occurring, and bumping heads with Fahey.

Director Jeff Burr does nothing to liven up the proceedings, and Paul A. Birkett seems intent on providing the worst script that he possibly can. Birkett has a number of these TV-movies under his belt, and can do better than this, so it feels very much that he (or someone else) thought up a premise that he was then unable to flesh out into a full feature. The characters are even less interesting than the usual carboard cut-outs that can populate such fare, and the tornadoes never feel like an impressive force of evil . . . . . . . . . . . because they're tornadoes, alien or not.

Fahey and Wuhrer have a number of awful movies in their filmography by now, yet this remains a low point for both of them. Asaro actually doesn't come over too badly. Hopefully, she can keep working hard until she drags herself further up the ladder. Willard E. Pugh does his best in the role of the local law enforcement, and David Jensen and Marcus Lyle Brown are a couple of shady characters working for an agency that knows a bit more about the tornadoes than it's willing to let the public know.

There's a beginning, middle, and end here, but the fact that absolutely nothing exciting happens during any section of the movie turns the whole thing into one long, boring mess. Even the poor dialogue that would usually give me a few chuckles seemed intent on putting me to sleep. The only thing saving this from being completely unwatchable is the cast, and that's me being charitable (because, let's face it, they're not working at the top of their game).

Avoid. If this appears on your TV at any point then turn off the TV immediately. If you're not quick enough, if one or two scenes pollute your brain before you can grab the remote control, then smash the screen, burn the whole thing, have a priest exorcise your living room, and then move house. Alternatively, change the channel and never speak of it again.

2/10

http://www.amazon.com/Tornado-Warning-Blu-ray-Stacey-Asaro/dp/B00AX0MDUM/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1405453459&sr=8-2&keywords=alien+tornado

Altitude (2010)

A bunch of hip, young folk are going to a Coldplay concert (okay, maybe they're not quite as hip as they'd like to think) and are doing so by flying their in a small plane because, y'know, one of them has been taking lots of flight lessons. Things start getting a bit hairy when some malfunction leads to the plane rising higher and higher with there seeming to be no solution for the terrified passengers. And there seems to be more in the skies around them than just obscuring clouds.

Written by Paul A. Birkett, Altitude feels very much like some half-hour Twilight Zone episode stretched into a flimsy 90 minute movie. The direction by Kaare Andrews doesn't really help either, although he doesn't do anything majorly wrong he doesn't do anything fantastic either and the whole thing has a very pedestrian feel to it.

The cast? Oh dear. Jessica Lowndes in the lead role obviously read the script and was so happy to be able to pretend that she actually knew how to handle a plane that she forgot she would have to act at any other time. To say that she's on autopilot is kind of insulting to autopilots, they at least do what's expected of them. Landon Liboiron plays the quiet, twitchy lad who has somehow been able to go out with Miss Lowndes for a while and there's no way you can believe this. Their characters seem incompatible and have no chemistry whatsoever. The other main actors (Julianna Guill, Ryan Donowho and Jake Weary) fare slightly better but can never rise above the mediocre level of the material they have to work with.

Altitude has one or two ideas in there that are almost good, almost enjoyable. If it was taken apart and completely reworked, with the focus on one or two impressive aspects and an overhaul of the ridiculous ending that I pretty much saw coming from the off (despite how outlandish it seems), then it could be something decent.

But it hasn't been taken apart and reworked. And we're stuck with that terrible ending. It's lucky to get a distinctly average score, more for a couple of the ideas and potential than the end result.


5/10.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Altitude-DVD-Jessica-Lowndes/dp/B004AFK7U4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1341341912&sr=8-1

The Keeper (2009)

I was so close, SO close. I almost settled on a 7/10 for this one, a Seagal movie from 2009 that really didn't suck and really proved to be genuinely entertaining for most of the runtime. Sadly, it was still held back by a few things. Like trying to convince us once again that Steven Seagal is the greatest person to have ever lived and we should all be thankful for his presence - he is Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris and Buddha rolled into one. Or so he would like us to think. There was also a poor opening section to get through and the standard choppy editing during the action moments (which are, it has to be said, still very entertaining and fan-pleasing).

Seagal plays an ex-cop named Roland Sallinger who is invited to Texas by a friend to guard his daughter after an attempted kidnapping. Seagal is happy to help, also beefing up the security system around the home of his friend, upsetting some local law enforcement and generally being the embodiment of awesomeness that he always strives to be.

With a touch of humour throughout, a decent premise that deviates just enough from the 101 other Seagal movies and good pacing, The Keeper is a solid action movie that deserves to be seen by more than the handful of die-hard Seagal fans who seem to be the only ones left keeping him in any kind of career.

Written by Paul A. Birkett and directed by Keoni Waxman, the film falls into a few of the usual pitfalls that appear in ever Seagal movie but makes up for this with the energy and fun factor of many other moments. The cast are all pretty decent, compared to past efforts starring our leading man, and Liezl Carstens is also easy on the eye, which helps.

A few more movies like this, and a few less like the abominations he has foisted upon his loyal audience, and Seagal may yet prove that his career deserves the faint pulse that it, miraculously, still has.

6/10.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Keeper-DVD-Arron-Shiver/dp/B002KAIVVI