Marshal Phipps
This film starts off strong and manages to keep its strength to the end. For a TV movie it does impress, the tornadoes looks surprisingly realistic and the characters are developed enough to where you can easily sympathize with them during their conflict.On a technical standpoint the film stumbles due to the inaccurate depiction of a nuclear power plant. If tornadoes were to hit a nuclear power plant in real life a meltdown would be extremely unlikely due to the multiple fail-safes, a good example of this is when the Davis- Besse Nuclear Power Station was struck by an F2 tornado in 1998, the reactor core automatically shutting down after external power was disabled when the switchyard was damaged, power was restored without incident. Interestingly enough, this incident inspired the movie, though very loosely.Atomic Twister is an enjoyable film with suspense and humor here and there, I recommend you check it out.
bkoganbing
Since this film was a product made for the Science Fiction channel you would expect to have all kinds of unearthly creatures from space or newly rediscovered earth monsters in it. For Atomic Twister you would be wrong.The title is terribly misleading. No monsters arise from a tornado. A tornado is the cause of things, in fact a couple of them hit a nuclear power plant creating all kinds of problems for acting director of the facility Sharon Lawrence.The plot is completely ripped off from both The China Syndrome and the real life Three Mile Island near disaster from 1979. In many ways Atomic Twister is a throwback to the disaster films of the Seventies.Stars Sharon Lawrence, Mark-Paul Gosselaar, and Corbin Bernson give decent performances in a disaster film that has all the standard clichés of same. Still it's an unusual product from the Science Fiction network and easy to take.
cav427
A reactor hit by a Tornado? Plausible. Damage, Inplausable. This movie is filled with technical inaccuracies, Phony physics, and a poor understanding of how a reactor is run. Waste pools water will not boil, and has no links to reactor coolant. Movies like this have killed the nuclear power industry unjustifiably. The only reason my family and I continued watching was to make fun of it, like Mystery Science Theater 3000. In fact, I think any physicist watching this would vomit. A Chernobyl like event is impossible in the United States, since we use an ingenious device known as a Containment Building. Chernobyl did not have a containment building covering it's reactors.
Theo Robertson
I will give this TVM some credit for getting off to a good start even though it`s basically a remake of the opening of TWISTER . Such a pity it`s revealed as " A boy reading a story to his friends " sequence . I will also give the producers some credit for casting a fairly fit actress as the heroine and praise too for the director for concentrating on Stacey the babysitter`s cleavage as she play`s twister with the heroine`s kidWell that`s all the good bits mentioned , what about the bad ?
You do get the feeling that no one on this TVM has any knowledge what so ever as to how nuclear reactors or tornados work . If this teleplay is set at a nuclear power plant then why`s it called ATOMIC TWISTER ? Surely atomic power plants and nuclear power plants are different things ? They`re operated by diesel pumps ? They have no back up power source ? Tornados can creep up on you without you noticing them ? And if you think that`s unbelievable wait till you see the pretty boy cop trying to save the day . Most cops would put on their lights and sirens , put their foot on the gas and drive all the way to the south pole . Mind you don`t run down any penguins officer
AD
