SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Better Late Then Never

A Disappointing Continuation

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

This film could have been good. Instead we got another SYFY movie. The whole idea of Aliens is always great and having Aliens control our weather (and tornadoes) is a really fun concept to play with. Aliens controlling tornadoes to say destroy big areas to lay foot for a bigger plan. Like the city destroyers in independence day, the tornadoes could level whole cities and towns and then the real aliens could land.

Jeff Fahey is the only reason to watch this movie. In fact, most of the movies Jeff Fahey leads or costars in are like that. Oh, wait a minute. I just thought of another reason to watch this movie.Imagine your great Aunt Mildred sitting on her sofa in front of the TV with her friends Gladys and Harriet. They are sipping some tea which they spiked with a bit of whiskey and are giggling while nibbling on their sugar cookies. They are watching this movie and appropriately gasping when the tornadoes appear or when someone gets sucked up by a tornado (a comical vision which offers no real fright) or when the bad guy puts on his rough act with the good guy (serious overacting here by nearly everyone in the movie but for Jeff Fahey and the lady who played his daughter, Stacey Asaro). Great Aunt Mildred leans forward and shouts at the TV, "Aw, shut up ya big bully!" Friends Harriet and Gladys loudly agree between giggles and sips of tea.If you want a B movie which has some good stuff with a few laughable things in it, this isn't it. There is no good stuff. But there's lots of laughable things in it. Watch it with Great Aunt Mildred. It will make her happy. Seriously. She deserves quality time with you.

As you probably know, the typical motion picture that's made with a connection to the SyFy network isn't exactly high art, and "Alien Tornado" is no exception. In fact, it's several notches below the level that would be considered "low art". One good thing about it was the performance by David Jensen, playing the creepy Armstrong character, who actually makes for a slimy villain. Actually, that is the ONLY good thing I can think about this movie. The movie suffers from poor direction, ranging from making a death of a character incomprehensible, to failing to make it clear a town has been decimated, a fact that we only find out in the following scene. And there is also terrible special effects, dumb dialogue, stupid character decisions. You name the problem, this movie has it. It's no wonder the SyFy network changed its name after several years of airing terrible movies like this - who wouldn't want to distance themselves?

At least this movie was watchable and maybe even re-watchable, which is more than I can say for many Hollywood "A" pictures. The core idea of Alien Tornado was good and even somewhat original: Aliens invade Earth with something other than spaceships and death-rays. Given that setup and SyFy's regular treatment, it's a mildly entertaining entry with some fun bits here and there. Again, more than can be said for certain top-rated movies.Jeff Fahey from Lost and Kari Wuhrer from Sliders were good enough for the material and I enjoyed their performances, though the director might have rushed through some scenes. No, the effects weren't great but, in my opinion, they were effective which is all I expect effects to be.As for the screenplay, characters and dialogue I've got news for you: most big-budget blockbusters start out like this. The producers then bring in the high-powered script doctors to fix everything up, change or remove characters, make the "science" sound more believable, tweak dialogue into something resembling human speech. SyFy budgets don't allow for this so what we end up seeing feels like a first draft -- which is what it is, probably.