About 30 years ago, eight-year-old Ryan Grantham (as "Little" April) and teenage sister Kristy Dinsmore (as "Little" Sean) are driving with their parents in Oklahoma during a terrible storm. A man foolishly stands on his truck and is struck down. They family stops and tries to save him, leading to even more tragedy… Presently, storm tracking professional Mimi Rogers (as "grown-up" April Saunders) specializes in the study of tornadoes and how to manage them safely. A single mom, Ms. Rogers has one daughter - pretty but bratty Elyse Levesque (as Dana). Ms. Levesque is rehearsing "Romeo and Juliet" at her high school when a storm hits, then blames her frantic mother for not arriving in time to provide comfort...Somehow managing to refrain from slapping her ungrateful child, mother Rogers takes Levesque go to visit brother Robert Moloney (as "grown-up" Sean Saunders) in Seattle. Now a policeman, he lives with pregnant wife Tracy Trueman (as Molly). She's a good hostess. Rogers finds romance with local TV weatherman Andrew Airlie (as Travis Jones), an old college boyfriend. They have a secret. Levesque is attracted to new college boyfriend Ryan Kennedy (as Ryan Laswell), who likes his women willing and able - well, maybe not always willing. Naturally, a terrible "Storm Cell" threatens the entire cast...This "Lifetime" TV-movie does not convince with the storm as a "monster" (complete with growling sound effects), which isn't used effectively with the surprise villain. You can see how it might have been better.**** Storm Cell (3/19/08) Steven R. Monroe ~ Mimi Rogers, Elyse Levesque, Robert Moloney, Ryan Kennedy

This movie is dreadful. It has a boring plot, seeded with cliché; horribly written dialogue; and acting that is equivalent to a high school film project or a local commercial. There's even an unnecessary "lost father" bit thrown in that "ties up" at the end when the father says to his daughter "that's a long story." It's even sexist. The selfish daughter runs away from home to get attention, punches a guy in the face, and he's carted off to jail for it; I wish she was caught by the tornado and impaled on a telephone pole---then the story would have made sense. The only thing good about this movie are the storm graphics which are fairly well done, but even this is ruined by the sound effects---stock monster groans that are repeated over and over again. Perhaps having the storm sound like a demon would have been effective if (1) they used something I haven't heard before in every monster movie or video game I've ever watched or played, and (2) they played it only once and very quietly so it's a subtle comment on how nature can sometimes mirror the hellish nightmares we thought were confined to our imaginations, not my Spooktastic Halloween Sound Effects Vol. 2 CD stuck on the part where the werewolf attacks.

First of all I had to view this movie at a friend's home because despite the fact that I emailed Lifetime several times, they did not provide the option for "Every Woman Counts" on my Charter on demand to select that movie although they have been advertising it for weeks. It was interesting although the Science and Meterology data was faulty and at times just made up to suit the occasion. But nevertheless I enjoyed it. The story was engaging and the action scenes had something for everyone.The acting was very good. Direction although problematic with the subject at hand, caused the story to unfold and flow very well.

This one hurt. And I'm usually a sucker for really bad Twister ripoffs made for cable. We've seen this plot before, twice. Estranged parent-child relationship, because said parent is too devoted to chasing that big storm. Parent is obsessed with storms because of a tragedy in their childhood. Parent predicts The Big One will hit right where estranged child lives. Child doesn't believe them. Child has has several tense emo moments with parent. Big tornado predictably hits, key characters survive, and everyone is happy. See "Devil Winds" and "Tornado Warning" for this by -the-numbers plot as well. Amusingly, they use global warming for an excuse to "move" Tornado Alley to the pacific northwest so they could shoot cheaply in Vancouver. As expected, the tornado effects are lackluster. The CGI crew just rendered the same tornado for every scene. I think what really got to me was the darkness of the movie. By that I do not mean a grim undertone to the story... but rather how literally dark the image was throughout. I spent a lot of time straining to make out various details like character faces and locales. The environment around a tornado can be very dark, but this was done throughout the movie. I can only recommend this to people who didn't think it could get any worse than Atomic Twister.