‘Supercell’ whips up good weather-action thrills
A sub-Spielbergian throwback, “Supercell” is a drama about a Texas son trying to live up to the legendary status of his father. Set in West Texas “Tornado Alley” country, the film begins with flashbacks to the death of tornado chaser extraordinaire Bill Brody (Richard Gunn), who didn’t need a college degree to follow his dream, that dream being close encounters with life-threatening weather events.
Ten years after Brody’s death, his tall, meteorological prodigy son William (Daniel Diemer, TV’s “The Man in the High Castle”) helps his mother Quinn (the late, missing-from-the-AcademyAwards-memorial-segment Anne Heche) with her house-cleaning business. William also learns to drive a manual transmission with the help of his “friend” Harper (Jordan Kristine Seamon, TV’s “We Are Who We Are”) and her vintage, sky-blue Ford Mustang. William also gets into trouble for bringing a device his father made that might be mistaken for a bomb to school and for jumping on the school roof during a thunderstorm. The device is not a bomb. It is some sort of bomb-shaped, buzzing and whizzing, Bill Brody tornado detector.
When William’s “uncle” Roy Cameron (Skeet Ulrich) mails William his father’s journal, William is inspired. Roy works for a storm-chasing business for tourists and stormfriendly locals that is named after Bill Brody and owned by the gruff, bossy Zane Rogers (the embattled Alec Baldwin in a black cowboy hat). William, whose uniform is a zippered hoodie, a flannel shirt, t-shirt and shorts, tracks down Roy and insists on accompanying him on his storm-chasing adventures. The action will take William, Roy,
Zane and their paying customers across the Kansas border, where we see a statue of Dorothy Gale and her dog Toto. Are you ready for “the bear’s cage” and “gorilla hail?”
Meanwhile director and co-writer Herbert James Winterstern, who sounds like a character from “Game of Thrones,” is a veteran of the reality TV series “Siberia.” I’m guessing he’s seen some ugly weather. Co-writing with Anna Elizabeth James (“Emma’s Chance”), Winterstern
has fashioned a story that’s often vague on details. At times, William also seems like a bit of dope, like when he cannot let go of his beloved father’s journal or is left behind during a tense sequence by Roy, Zane and the van because William was in line to buy popcorn at a convenience store. Dang. Most of the action is sprinkled heavily with the John Williams-like strains of composer Corey Wallace (“We Have a Ghost”).
Heche, who has several other performances in various stages of postproduction, is a convincingly quirky and maternal figure here, giving chain-smoking Quinn just enough of a rough edge to make us believe she once chased twisters for a living. She is also one of this film’s producers. Ulrich overcomes the sense that reclusive tornado-chaser “uncle” Roy is a weirdo. Baldwin brings his outsized charisma to a role that at times doesn’t make much sense. The real stars of “Supercell are the CG weather and the awardwinning cinematography of Andrew Jeric (“Sightless). No matter how mundane or unbelievable the action on the ground might seem, the skies are riveting and horrifyingly splendid.
(“Supercell” contains profanity and people in peril)