In the next scene, the Titus Team is introduced, a group of filmmakers who are intent on filming tornados. Pete is the leader of the group and he is kinda pissed since they missed the tornado last night. The group is composed of two teams, one rides the Tornado Intercept Vehicle – a heavily armoured van where the filmmakers ride to take video footage. The other team are in a van filled with numerous monitors for tracking storms and tornados, manned by Allison and Daryl. They soon learn that a Tornado Watch has been declared for five states so the group gets excited since after many months of filming nothing, they may soon get to film their first tornado.
Meanwhile, high school vice principal has tasked his two sons, Donnie and Trey, to film a time capsule video for the students to watch in 25 years. But while Donnie was filming his piece Trey comes in to disrupt his message by leaking about Donnie’s crush on another HS junior, Kaitlyn. He introduces his brother, Trey and also their father who is a bit distant to the two boys, or maybe he is just busy with the graduation ceremony later that day. Trey makes his own message for the time capsule then Donnie decides to take the bike to school and not join his dad and brother in car. His father realized he was mad and so he tried to apologize but Donnie brushes him off saying he’s used to his indifference by now.
Allison and Pete get into an argument on where to go to track the storm, Allison’s instincts tells them to go to Silverton but Pete wants them to go elsewhere. They decide to follow Allison as she was the one with the degree on this. Meanwhile, we meet two idiot buddies who are trying to make a youtube video using an ATV that they crash into a lawn rubber pool which ends up wrecked in the process. But the two are quite happy with what they’ve done thinking they would soon be famous...well, until their mom sees the ruckus they made and yells at them to leave.
Back with the Titus team, Pete introduces his Tornado Intercept Vehicle and marvels at its unique features particularly designed to run after and capture tornados on film. Then, Allison gets a call from home and she tries to reassure her daughter that she will be coming home soon, after they get footage of the storm, after all she had been away on the road for three months already.
At the school, Trey secretly videotapes Kaitlyn being reprimanded by a teacher so Donnie approaches her to ask how she is. Trey also records his approach and he learns she needs to do a video project for her internship application but the video got corrupted. Donnie offers to help her out with the video but he needs to tape the graduation ceremony so he makes Trey do it so he can help Kaitlyn with her project. So Trey proceeds to do the interviews for the video time capsule and interviews different students and school personalities. He also starts to set-up the camera for the upcoming school graduation and when their dad asks where Donny was, he replied that he didn’t know but he must be around somewhere.
The Titus team watch news about the storm and Pete gets a bit mad at Allison that she was wrong about its location then suddenly a hail storm happens while they were at the hotel and they realize that the storm is headed their way. Meanwhile, Donnie and Kaitlyn are already at the abandoned papermill to take some footage for Kaitlyn’s project just as the graduation ceremony has commenced. The team drives down the fields to take footage just as Donk and Reevis approach and they also try to get video footage of the tornado. Rain starts to fall on the graduating students and so they finish the speeches and the storm alarm goes off so they all head back to the school building.
The Titus team anchors down the TIV in a field and wait for the tornado to pass its way but surprisingly the tornado veered its course and turned left towards the school. The principal and the students keep their heads down as the tornado hits the school directly and throws a tree through the doors and tears a hole through the roof and sucking a few students out. Gary tries calling Donnie but he refused to answer the phone thinking he would just be mad for skipping out on the graduation ceremony. He used Trey’s phone instead and so Donnie answers but he was unable to warn Donnie about the tornado approaching since the line was cut-off then the paper mill suddenly collapses around them.
The Titus team tracks a second tornado headed downtown and proceeds there just as Gary and Trey head off to find Donnie. As they pass thru the town, they see the devastation wreaked by the tornado and help their neighbour and his dog to safety. Allison, meanwhile stops to advise the two drunkards – Donk and Reevis to go somewhere safe but they refuse to heed her advice as they want to also film the tornado that suddenly appeared in front of them. The team runs to safety and while Trey was able to join the others inside a nearby cafe, Gary prevents Allison from being sucked by the tornado and holds on to her until it dissipates. The storm chasers decide to take Gary and Trey with them as they need to get to the paper mill but can’t anymore since their car got wrecked. Meanwhile, Pete’s newbie cameraman (Jacob) wants to quit since he was afraid that he may not make it out alive, chasing storms like this. So as backup, Pete talks to Trey to just keep filming and he will buy his footage for three thousand dollars.
Meanwhile, back at the paper mill, Donnie ties up a cut from Kaitlyn’s leg and he shared his mom was a nurse which is why he knows how to do that. He also shared with Kaitlyn his resentment about his mom leaving them and how on the last day he saw her he barely acknowledged her goodbye but little did he know it was the last time he gets to see her before a car accident takes her life. Then they hear some knocking sounds and figured it may be someone trying to find them but it turns out to be a pipe breaking and suddenly water begins to fill the hole they fell into, flooding it. Donnie succeds i n finally getting a signal and tells his dad that they are being flooded before getting cut-off again.
Pete tries to pep-talk Jacob into staying and apologizes for yelling at him a lot. He also tells Jacob that when he was younger, he was scared too but this is the chance he had been waiting for all his life and they are going to be fine. The team sees the tornado split into many more tornadoes and when one of them hits Allison’s van they decide to take shelter at a nearby church. Donk and Reevis get sucked inside one of the tornadoes and the team watches as one of them becomes a firenado. Jacob stops to take footage and when he drops his camera and turns back to get it, he gets pulled into the firenado. In the church, Allison blames Pete for Jacob’s death but Daryl steps in to take the blame saying it was him who convinced Jacob to stay on for just one more day. He opted to stay and find Jacob’s body and contact his parents. Allison shall take Gary and Trey in his vehicle to find Donnie and Pete is left alone in his TIV to finish filming.
Donnie and Kaitlyn feel that hope is running out as the water keeps getting higher and no one seems to be coming to find them. They both decide to record a final message for their parents, making their apologies and sending their love. By then, Gary receives Donnie’s message in his mailbox and they proceed to the paper mill even faster. When they reach the paper mill, they see a beam that traps them underneath which is too heavy for them to lift. So Trey rams the van to push the beam but also causes something to fall on Donnie’s leg. They pull Kaitlyn out and Gary jumps in for Donnie, cutting him loose with Trey’s knife. They perform CPR on him until he coughs and wakes up. Gary hugs him and Trey and they were happy to see Pete come back to help them and so they head back using the TIV as the van is now unusable.
The group sees a larger and more powerful tornado coming at them and so they proceed to the school to warn everyone as the warning signals are all down. They manage to get everyone inside the buses and get to safety. But as Gary and his family, with Alison get on a bus, a powerline falls and blocks their path so they turn back to find another way out. The group decide to take refuge inside a storm drain and as the giant tornado comes, the group inside is threatened when the grates are pulled by the wind. So Pete drives the TIV down the drain and uses the anchoring system to keep the grate in place. The storm intensifies while Allison and Gary hold each other and the kids down and Pete and the TIV are pulled up into the air. Pete soon finds himself high up above the clouds and sees the sun and marvels at the extreme beauty of it all before he falls back to the ground and dies.
The tornado finally leaves the town and in its stead, the devastation it left was enormous. The entire town was destroyed and the next scene shows the town citizens returning to their homes and putting back what they could together again, finding relatives alive. Allison assures her daughter that she is coming home and Trey finishes the time capsule video by recording the citizens and how thankful they were to be alive after the storm. Gary and the boys make their own video tribute and it seems they became closer after what happened. And before the movie finally ends, Donk and Reevis are shown hanging on the trees and they were both darn happy to have survived the storm. They just knew that their latest video would finally make them both rich and famous.
What do I think of this movie...? Well, it was reminiscent of the early Twister movie back in 1996 but then the fact that it dealt with tornados too was the main reason I watched the film and I ended up getting just that...a film about the tornado and not much else, even the characters they introduced were forgettable...I guess I am just glad that the effects were definitely much better than the previous disaster films.
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