J Paul Johnson
If you’re the type of moviegoer who misses the days when disaster films were occasions for mawkish family melodrama, serviceable special-effects spectacle, a cast of B-list actors past their primes (and others yet to make their marks) staring off awestruck at the horizon, all of it set to a thunderous orchestral score pumping up the volume, Supercell is for you. Channeling surprise hits like 1996’s Twister through Spielbergian familial melodrama and a John Williamsesque score, Supercell surely does not lack for trying to trump up its emotion and spectacle.
The tornado-twisting, storm-chasing actioner is the feature-film directorial debut from Herbert James Winterstern, a USC film-school grad whose biggest credit to date is directing episodes of the 2013 Survivor-meets-Blair-Witch series Siberia for NBC. His aim is pretty clear: to imbue his filmmaking with the kind of awe he saw a generation ago in E.T. and Jurassic Park, when films weren’t made to stream on the small(er) screens in our family rooms and smaller-still ones cradled in our palms.
Whether you consider those aims achieved will depend in part on how much you share Winternstern’s pining for the days of yore. If you don’t share those sentiments, you’re likely to find Supercell impressively old-fashioned, awfully slow to ramp up the F-Scale, and much too focused on tepid family dynamics to generate any real excitement.
The drama here is both familial and familiar, based on a young man’s pining for his absent father. When William Brody (Daniel Diemer) was a boy, his father was a storm chaser of legend, a fearless, educated scientist. But in the years since his father lost his life to a tornado, young William has been equally fascinated by them, a curiosity heightened by his most treasured heirloom: his dad’s leather storm-chasing notebook, a talisman of sorts standing in for the relationship that never was. William lives now with his long-suffering mom Quinn (Anne Heche, in one of her last roles finished before her death last August) and is boy-stumbling awkwardly through a budding relationship with classmate Harper (Jordan Kristine Seamon).
The family business—Brody Storms Tours—belongs now to Zane Rogers (Alec Baldwin), whose reckless, nonscientific approach suggests he’s more interested in tourists’ dollars than the science of storms. As one of history’s most powerful storms gears up, William feels called to destiny, leaving behind his mother and girlfriend (because for some reason in Supercell only the men actively chase storms, while women stay behind and advocate for caution) to join up with up with his father’s ex-partner, Roy Cameron (Skeet Ulrich). With Rogers in charge and a set of unsuspecting tourist-patrons in tow, William and Roy survive some close calls before their chase leads to one of nature’s most terrifying creations: the bear’s cage, that storm-cell center made famous by Philip Seymour Hoffman’s throaty yell in Twister.
It takes some time to get there, though, because Winterstern is determined that we understand, perhaps even suffer through, the family dynamics intended to raise the narrative stakes. Young William needs to find his identity while still grieving his lost dad. Mom Quinn is taken for granted, as is William’s girlfriend. Roy and Zane are the two available competing father figures. While the basic narrative pattern mimics that of Jurassic Park—scientific exploration is turned into money-grubbing tourist trap, putting innocent and guilty both in mortal danger—Supercell forgets, often and for too long, why we’re really here.
To my thinking, that’s to see the big bad, the EF-5 twister do its thing, and to see the villains of the piece, à la Jurassic Park, meet their fates in spectacular and deserving fashion. Nothing rises to the level of Nedry’s demise in that classic, but I can think of at least one former president who might really enjoy at least one moment in Supercell. Until the big bad roars, you’ll just have to wait while Diemer, Heche, and Ulrich bereave and belabor their interpersonal relationships. Once Baldwin shows up, barking orders and bearing his pearlies, the conflicts escalate and the film becomes, for its last act, good clean disaster-film fun.
The effects are certainly convincing enough, and the film evokes a certain professionalism in all technical matters. Baldwin and Heche began their careers on the soaps in the ’80s and bring a veteran competence to their work. They’ve both brought their talents to dozens of strong films over the decades, but here they are really supporting a protagonist whose plight is simply not interesting enough to carry the narrative.
Until Baldwin puts the whole crew in danger, though, there’s not a lot to recommend. The mumbling between characters discussing their emotional plights is largely drowned out by Corey Wallace’s incessant old-school score, hoping to trump up a little drama where little really exists. Winterstern’s debut feature may hope to bring back to theaters a little old-school ’80s awe and magic, cramming us in a tiny Brody Storm Tours van like visitors to Jurassic Park, but the whole operation feels like little more than a second-rate imitation.
Supercell, directed by Herbert James Winterstern, and starring Skeet Ulrich, Anne Heche, Daniel Diemer, Jordan Kristine Seamón, Anjul Nigam, and Alec Baldwin, debutes Friday, March 17 on demand and in theaters. 100 minutes, rated PG-13 for language, some peril and smoking.
