2012
Dir: Roland Emmerich
2009
**
I like a big disaster film and they don't get much bigger (or disastrous) than 2012. Roland Emmerich has the big budget and the computer know-how to create visual amazingness....at least for the first 5 minutes. It all gets a little gratuitous after that with planes dodging buildings, underground trains flying out of mountains and an indestructible limousine. Watching the demise of every landmark between LA and China is standard but it gets a little tiresome after a while. Roland Emmerich's biggest downfall (yet again) is the huge pile of steaming schmaltz he covers the film in, running head-first into every action film cliche in the book (the dog survives and even though he turns out to be a nice guy, the step-dad dies because there is no room for him in the family dynamic, people don't split up in Hollywood, someone has to die). Emmerich needs to pull a new trick out of his sleeve, next time he should kill everyone including the kids and especially the dog!

Into The Storm
Dir: Steven Quale
2014
**
Eighteen years after the release of Twister, it's fair to say it was time for a new big storm movie. Firstly, the effects are brilliant. Twister's effects aren't bad still but Into The Storm's are on another level. The special effects are so good in fact that the people and writing severely let it down. The whole film is supposedly watched as part of a found footage type documentary. This doesn't work at all, especially when they often forget to show the action from one of the many cameras we're supposed to believe would still work in that situation. I watched this with my Sister who is a Meteorologist. She informed me that all my favorite scenes were the ones that aren't actually possible but for the most part the science holds up. Shame really because by favorite bits only last for about 10 minutes, the rest is 80 minutes of truly awful video messages full of teenage angst, Father issues, child abandonment and flag waving. The inclusion of footage from two local 'jackasses' is embarrassing and in bad taste. It's like wearing a dirty old trench coat over a beautiful Italian suit, the core is good but the rest is rotten. What a huge wasted opportunity!