TORNADO ALLEY (Sean Casey). See listings. Rating: NN
Sean Casey’s Tornado Alley demonstrates that IMAX isn’t always the ideal format for you-are-there nature documentaries. The medium lends itself to serene contemplation rather than chaotic immediacy.
Yes, I now know what a killer twister looks like from the inside, but I also have an awful crick in my neck from trying to follow the action as it whipped around the massive frame. (In fairness, the OMNIMAX presentation at the Ontario Science Centre, which throws the image well over the audience’s head, might have had something to do with that as well.)
Casey, the star of the reality series Storm Chasers, spent eight years on this documentary, which makes the experience that much more frustrating. Other than one great shot of cows being confused by a hailstorm, there’s nothing particularly cinematic about it.
Casey and his team chase twisters across a tornado-friendly stretch of the American heartland with the hope of capturing meteorological data from inside a funnel cloud. In order to accomplish that, he engineered a kind of lightweight tank – essentially an armoured pickup truck capable of staying on the ground in a storm – but the trick is getting to the right place at the right time so a tornado can pass over it.
It’s basically a documentary version of the movie Twister (Casey even taps star Bill Paxton to provide the sombre narration), and just like that fictional adventure, it ends with the revelation that the inside of a tornado looks a lot like the outside of one: it’s a big, loud storm. Better use of cows, though.
Tornado Alley continues at the Ontario Science Centre.
