Into the Storm
New Line Cinema | Release Date: August 8, 2014 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
44
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 32 Critic Reviews
Positive:
6
Mixed:
18
Negative:
8
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliAug 11, 2014
Into the Storm is as straightforward a disaster film as you're likely to find. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleAug 7, 2014
It's hard to imagine any movie ever topping this one's depiction of killer tornadoes laying waste to the Midwest. Read full review
75
New York PostLou LumenickAug 7, 2014
The found-footage disaster flick Into the Storm is “Twister’’ for dummies, but by no means is that an insult. The new film is enormous fun if you’re in the right mood. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleLouis BlackAug 6, 2014
Into the Storm captures the magnificence of tornadoes, their awful beauty when they set down, the devastation they wreak, and the enormity of their consequences. The film features a rich array of well-developed characters – including the storm itself – which makes it ever more involving as it unfolds. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy BurrAug 7, 2014
Bring on the bread and circuses. Into the Storm features laughable dialogue, far-fetched situations, and generic characters played by actors who almost look like more famous stars. I still had a blast; and if you lower your resistance, you may too. Read full review
63
St. Louis Post-DispatchKevin C. JohnsonAug 7, 2014
Not all of it makes sense, but for disaster movie fans, Into the Storm has enough destruction to go around. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranAug 7, 2014
Its story line and performances are no more than serviceable, but those terrible twisters are state of the art. Read full review
60
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternAug 7, 2014
To give the film its full due, the people who made it — the writer, John Swetnam, and the director, Steven Quale — got wind of a genuine trend and ran with it. Everyone on screen is busy filming everyone else. It's a shakier-camera version of "The Blair Witch Project" in the era of YouTube. Read full review
58
HitfixDrew McWeenyAug 7, 2014
The film barely services the main characters and their arcs, so there's really no room for the sort of delicate etching needed to make supporting characters live and breathe. The film is at its best when it embraces the goofy nature of disaster films in general, and when it gives the audience the red meat it craves so desperately. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyAug 6, 2014
Into The Storm is an uncanny valley disaster movie — not as consciously cheesy and cheap as something like "Sharknado 2," but built around a similar equation of unreality and gratification. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comBrian TallericoAug 8, 2014
The structure and impressive effects of Into the Storm could keep viewers entertained on a rainy weekend evening but it’s the shallow, non-existent characterizations that keep it from working. Read full review
50
The New York TimesNicolas RapoldAug 7, 2014
This film is actually less menacing than marveling, though a disturbing opening scene in a storm-tossed van could fit right into Mr. Quale’s earlier work. Read full review
50
USA TodayClaudia PuigAug 7, 2014
One-dimensional characters play second fiddle to the main event. Given the large cast of faceless players, it's hard to care when a few get sucked into oblivion. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperAug 7, 2014
If we don’t care a whit about the characters and their respective dilemmas, a multiple-vortex tornado ripping through a used car lot is just a multiple-vortex tornado ripping through a used car lot. Read full review
50
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzAug 7, 2014
Into the Storm plays like a special-effects demonstration in search of a movie, but you have to give it to the filmmakers: They take no half-measures. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineChristopher GrayAug 7, 2014
There are many instances of questionable logic in Into the Storm, but the most persistent is the film's unexplained assumption that tornado-hunting is a growth industry. Read full review
50
McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreAug 7, 2014
As impressive as the effects can be, as effective as the blend of TV news helicopter POV shots, security camera footage, cell-phone video and storm chaser images mimicked here turn out, the human stories are given short shrift in this “spend our budget on effects” action picture. Read full review
50
The DissolveTasha RobinsonAug 6, 2014
As clumsy as Quale is with the sequences of people shouting exposition back and forth, or delivering teary Blair Witch-style goodbyes into a camera that would have died long before its operators, he handles the CGI action with breathless intensity. Read full review
40
CineVueEd FranklSep 22, 2014
When you're pining for Bill Paxton and the relative emotional realism of Twister, you know you're in trouble. Read full review
40
The GuardianMike McCahillSep 22, 2014
Its destructive setpieces may loose the odd popcorn kernel on to the multiplex carpet, but it's really just an effects reel: the weather – cloudy wisps turning to massive, fiery hellblasts – is considerably better developed than its quarry. Stick with Twister. Read full review
40
Village VoiceAlan ScherstuhlAug 8, 2014
Too cartoonish to be cathartic, and too ghoulish to be honest fun, Into the Storm is mostly a somewhat uncomfortable sit enlivened by occasional hilariousness. Read full review
40
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriAug 7, 2014
Into the Storm is at once one of the dumbest films you'll see this year and one of the scariest. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanAug 7, 2014
Once Quale and writer John Swetnam get their generic setup out of the way, they can loosen up and treat the tornadoes like the villains they are. The effectively simulated storms, with their massive wreckage, start to feel like monsters stalking the heroes. Read full review
40
The Hollywood ReporterStephen FarberAug 7, 2014
The script by John Swetnam is rudimentary, with only the most minimal and pallid stabs at characterization... Nevertheless, once the funnel clouds begin swirling, Quale and his special effects team achieve some remarkably authentic and frightening moments. Read full review
38
Philadelphia InquirerTirdad DerakhshaniAug 8, 2014
Hollywood's latest entry in that tried-and-true genre, the disaster movie, is . . . well, it's like . . . a totally gnarly roller-coaster ride! Read full review
38
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsAug 7, 2014
Nobody watches a disaster movie starring digital tornadoes expecting Oscar Wilde. But Into the Storm, directed with bland efficiency by Steven Quayle of "Final Destination 5," reminds us that unless a movie establishes certain base-line levels of human interest, it runs the not-unentertaining risk of coming out squarely in favor of its own bad weather. Read full review
37
Washington PostStephanie MerryAug 7, 2014
For all the movie’s grandiose annihilation, there also is action so absurd and emotion so saccharine that the likelihood of involuntary laughter is high. Read full review
30
TheWrapJames RocchiAug 7, 2014
At the climax of Into the Storm, colossal tornadoes make noise, blow things up, and go around in circles; that's pretty much all the film does, too. Read full review
30
VarietyScott FoundasAug 7, 2014
Into the Storm can make it rain like nobody’s business, but when it tries to be smart, it comes out all wet. Read full review
25
Portland OregonianMarc MohanAug 8, 2014
If the film had been trimmed to 45 minutes of crazed storm-chasing and storm-fleeing, it might've been worth a matinee ticket. But as is, it's the sort of lazy late-summer idiocy you'd be wise to huddle beneath an overpass to avoid. Read full review
25
Charlotte ObserverLawrence ToppmanAug 7, 2014
Many movies require us to turn off our brains, and many rely on clichés and/or coincidences. It takes a special kind of shamelessness to do both, and Into the Storm has that in spades. Read full review
25
The PlaylistKevin JagernauthAug 7, 2014
Even within the spinning cylinder of mediocrity that is Into The Storm, there are some minor pleasures to be had. Those are mostly found in Walsh, who is probably best known for comedic supporting turns, but makes the most with what is nearly a leading man part here. Read full review
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