Movie Review: Metal Tornado (2011) by Tim Ward

Do I really need to give any more reason to watch this than the title? The plot? Oh, OK:

A experiment to develop a new energy source creates magnetic tornados that suck in anything made of metal

So, they’re trying to harness the power of solar flares to attain a new energy source. That’s plausible, I guess. It’s all going swimmingly until “something’s wrong with the magnetic sources” which is brilliantly vague. Soon, paper clips start moving, pens roll up desks, cars bob up and down. 

Somewhere in the woods surrounding the, er, lab, is a lumberjack with a chainsaw. This might not end well. Sure enough the chainsaw starts rearing up giving the actor a fantastic opportunity to try out his “Holy shit! I am struggling to handle this chainsaw!” routine. He lets go and the chainsaw floats off in one direction, only to turn around in mid air and fly towards the lumberjack. It then flies up out of the woods. Now, shouldn’t it continue in the same direction? Or fall to ground and be dragged? The lumberjack is fine by the way, it hit his helmet.

The guys handling the experiment get to “100% capacity” and shut off the system. There is much whooping and a-hollering as they’ve just discovered “a clean safe energy supply!” YAY! Tomorrow, the second download will take place at the French facility. This is all going well.

Wait, I think some ‘character development’ is about to occur. A concerned woman is at home looking at a laptop displaying a screen that says “DESIGN FLAWS” while some guy motocrosses his way round the woods, stopping to check his compass which is whirling around like mad. SUDDENLY HIS FUCKING BIKE FLIES OFF. Off it goes into a glowing blue tornado looking thing. There’s already a few bits in there – hubcaps, poles and his bike is the latest addition to this swirly Steptoe’s yard.  ”What the heck?” is his rather calm and rational reaction.

The woman from the house has called through to the, er, lab – I’ll stick with lab, and says something about her husband being dead and him finding design flaws. Probably in that big folder called DESIGN FLAWS. “Mike” (Wow an actual character name!) has concerns. His concerned face is rivalled only by the lumberjack on the acting stakes.

Concern: He has it

Gas station scene now – and there’s an attendant, Stan, admiring a bike, a middle aged woman, an older than you think woman all in leather with plenty of cleavage and the gormless, dribbling shop assistant. Hilarity ensues as the tornado approaches poor Stan. But, like, he’ll be OK – he’s not a robot – unless there’s an awesome plot twist coming! Oh. No, there isn’t.

The gas station is torn apart as gas pumps, shelves, hammers fly about. Albert, the assistant is smashed in the head a can of 6 Bean Medley, which leaves him seemingly dead with a 3 inch bloody gash across his forehead. Christ, they make these cans well. The middle aged woman is hysterical: “MAYBE ITS GHOSTS!” she yells! “No,” Stan ain’t taking her shit, “Don’t give me a that ghost crap – there must be an explanation”. Well, Stan, you saw that sodding tornado thing 30 seconds ago, maybe it was that?

Mike’s son is doing homework at the lab. He has a weird accent, looks nothing like dad and has a surly teenage attitude straight from the Lazy Screenwriter’s Handbook. He’s got to stay and work while his dad heads over to the gas station. The women are bickering over whether it was ghosts or not and Stan totally ignores the fact he saw a sodding tornado just before it happened.

The tornado is picking up more stuff – some chicken wire, another hammer, a tractor while rolls over some poor bloke. Meanwhile, the penny drops with Mike – all their watches have stopped and his compass is going haywire

“This whole area has been polarised. I think it’s because of us.”

“Mike, that’s impossible.”

“No, we lost 2% of magnetic power following the experiment.”

Oh, yeah, I guess it might be related then! The tornado is ridiculous now – it takes some metal trailer, a hose, a rotatory drier. Mike is on it, calling into the lab

“I think we’ve found our 2% – it’s becoming a roving magnetic vortex.”

Woah, Mike, that’s some heavy shit to lay on me bro. Or something.  Mike’s kid and his mate are, suddenly, driving along. “Man, I love these open roads! No speed traps!” says the kid, while cruising at a speed I would put at 35mph.

Jonathan, the boss of the experiments, isn’t convinced by Mike’s crazy “theories” and “evidence.” Mike is undeterred – he’s off to the hospital, chats to the farmer who didn’t die when he was run over by a tractor. Man, that guy is tough. Mike’s son stumped upon an injured farm hand who was battered by farm equipment and they race to the hospital. Shit just got real.

Mike has found video evidence of “something” moving out of the magnetic field they created. Still, no one bar Mike really gives a fuck. Now the tornado has it’s first actual victim – a woman in a car gets sucked away. When will people learn!? Well, Jonathan. Not yet. He is not postponing the Paris launch, and he’s going to fire Mike too, just because he can.

Paris had a bit of an error. They lost a lot of “the download” and a magnetic tornado is in Paris too, Euro Metal Tornado if you will. Now it’s up to Mike to figure out how to stop it. Maybe a giant fridge? Like, REALLY big?

The town of Henderson is right in the path of the metal tornado, which is so massive it’s hard to understand how only a handful of people have seen it. The town is battered as lampposts, bins, cars, robotic drones and pulled into the tornado. The metal tornado. Mike has a solid plan – dropping an electronic magnetic pulse right into the middle of it. That’ll work, apparently. It’ll destroy every electronic device in Philadelphia, but you know. Nevermind.

The magnetic field is approaching Paris by the way. That’s a throwaway line just to keep us up to speed. Jonathan delivers the bad news – their own pulses won’t reach the French capital in time. Sure enough, cut to Paris – massive pissing tornado marauding towards the Eiffel Tower – which it decimates. “It’s a catastrophic.” Well, but as long as it doesn’t happen in the US, who cares?

The drone has got pulled into the tornado – because it’s metal? Makes sense. The second drone keeps it’s distance and detonates the bomb in the tornado. It worked – and tornado rains every bit of metal in the state down onto the streets. That’ll be fine.

Philly is saved! Paris is fucking, but nevermind. And that’s that!

What did we learn? Nothing. Literally nothing. Apart from that not a single character in the film has a surname.

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