Into the Storm

(This review can also be found at http://www.christiananswers.net/spotlight/movies/2014/intothestorm2014.html.)

Overall Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sequences of intense destruction and peril, and language including some sexual references

Appropriate for: Ages 13+

Genre: Action Disaster Thriller

Length: 89 minutes

Year of Release: 2014

On graduation day for the high school in the town of Silverton, Oklahoma, everyone’s future is looking bright, and it’s the job of two brothers, Donnie and Trey, to capture that optimism. Their dad, Greg (Richard Armitage), is the vice principal of the high school, and he has assigned them to gather footage for a video time-capsule. The two high-schoolers have spent a lot of time with their video cameras over the past several days—interviewing people around the town, asking them to look ahead twenty-five years into the future and share their thoughts on what the years ahead will bring. Now, on graduation day, their last job is to capture the ceremony on camera. To the two boys, it seems like that ceremony is all their dad cares about. Donnie is sick of his father’s perpetually high expectations for everything he does, and he feels like all he ever gets from his dad is criticism. When Donnie gets a chance to help the girl of his dreams with a video report that she is making, he skips the ceremony and leaves his brother alone to take care of recording the graduation. Unfortunately, however, it turns out that Donnie picked a bad day to wander off without his dad knowing.

Meanwhile, storm chasers Pete (Matt Walsh) and Allison (Sarah Wayne Callies) and their team are busy with their video cameras too, hoping to document America’s next big storm. Pete’s lifelong dream has been to capture up-close and personal footage of an epic tornado, and he’s ready to make that dream happen. It’s that time of year for tornadoes, and he’s got all the gear—but it just doesn’t seem like he has the right team for the job. The weather analyst, Allison, seems to lack the instincts necessary for chasing storms. She’s brought them to the town of Silverton, but the forecast predicts that only thunderstorms will disrupt the high school’s graduation ceremony. When the hail comes and the winds start to get fierce, though, Pete’s hopes start to rise. He might finally get his dream storm after all.

The drenching rain brings an abrupt end to the graduation ceremony, and the storm begins. As deadly tornadoes ravage the town, Donnie, Greg, Pete, and Allison and the rest of the storm’s victims learn to rethink their own priorities as they realize that there is much more to life than personal success and satisfaction.

Into the Storm has some great things to say about self-sacrifice, priorities in life, and the importance of living every day like it’s your last. This movie reminds us that we should not bank our happiness on personal success or on passing pleasures but that we should look for joy in the things that we tend to take for granted. Instead of perpetually hoping for something better in the future and pouting through our “unfair” or “boring” lives, we should be thankful for the lives we do have, the family we have been given, and the love we don’t always deserve. At the end of the movie, one previously cocky, crude high schooler says, “It only matters that I’m alive. I’m just thankful that I’m alive.” Other characters assert after the storm that “being together is all that matters” and that people should “take life one day at a time.” Although the world certainly needs to hear these messages, none of the hope and happiness that these characters show in the aftermath of the tornadoes’ destruction quite makes sense without Jesus Christ in the picture. In the final scenes of the movie, we hear the words, “Our faith will carry us through.” But the faith they’re talking about is not faith in God. It is faith in the human race. According to the biblical worldview, such faith is useless. No one can find true hope in life without Jesus, who sacrificed himself for the sins of the world so that those who put their faith in him might have eternal life. Although this movie doesn’t give the world the answers that it needs, it still brings up important questions about hope and purpose in life. It offers viewers the perfect opportunity to explore these themes. It reminds Christians of their true source of hope—the real Savior of the world.

On the other hand, however, this movie is a perfect illustration of why Hollywood is having one of its worst summers ever. The filmmakers had the not-so-brilliant idea of making the footage appear as if it were taken from the video cameras of the characters themselves. While this was probably intended to give the movie a more intimate feel, it only succeeds in making it seem more unrealistic and unprofessional. With that, some weak acting, and a simple and somewhat predictable plot, the only substantial accomplishment of Into the Storm is its series of impressive CGI tornadoes and the destruction that they bring.

And the destruction is certainly substantial. An entire town is leveled by the end of the movie, and several buildings are shown being torn up in the midst of the actual storm. Trees, cars, and houses are picked up and tossed about by the massive tornadoes, and a number of characters are carried off and killed by the violent winds of the storm. One minor character is pulled up into a flaming tornado that was ignited in a nearby gas leak. Two characters nearly drown, several are hit by debris, and others barely evade falling trees and power lines. Although the blood is limited to a few scratches and cuts, the intense moments in this film are enough to make it too much for young kids.

The movie also earns its PG-13 rating with a disappointing amount of foul language. In an hour and a half, they managed to fit in about two dozen uses of the word “s***,” and one to five uses each of the expletives “h***,” “a**,” “son of a b****,” “d**n,” “p***ed,” “sucked,” and “screwed.” The Lord’s name is taken in vain quite frequently, and there are also a few inappropriate references to parts of the body. A fair amount of the profanity comes from a group of thrill-seekers who are shown either drinking beers or being drunk during most of the movie.

On the boy-girl side of things, there are no explicit sexual scenes and only one scene with kissing: in the opening scene of the movie, two teenagers are briefly shown making out in the back of a car. However, there are still some objectionable references that parents should be aware of. Donnie has a crush on a pretty girl at his high school, and his brother accuses him of staring at her picture in the yearbook. Trey shows Donnie a shot of one of the high school teacher’s cleavage that he got while interviewing her for their video time-capsule. When Donnie goes off to talk to his crush, Trey tells him to “get some skin on camera” to show him later. During one of the boys’ interviews with a high school basketball player, the jock says that, in twenty-five years, he’ll be married to a “super smokin’ hot cheerleader wife” and mentions that he’ll “bang her up good.”  

Overall, I would not consider this movie worthy of a visit to the movie theater. I cannot recommend Into the Storm for young or sensitive viewers due to the profanity, sexual references, and destruction. However, for teens and adults who don’t mind intense action and who appreciate movies like the 1996 film Twister, this movie might be worth renting for a couple bucks. Despite the occasional cheesiness, the movie may even present families with an opportunity to discuss some important spiritual topics.

Peter Pan (2003)

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

MPAA Rating: PG for adventure action sequences and peril

Appropriate for: Ages 10+

Genre: Children’s Fantasy

Length: 113 minutes

Year of Release: 2003

Wendy Darling (played by Rachel Hurd-Wood) and her brothers, John and Michael, are longing for an adventure. However, in early 20^th century London, their adventures are limited to their nursery, where Wendy entertains her brothers with stories of princesses, pirates, and the worst pirate of them all, Captain James Hook. But her brothers aren’t Wendy’s only enraptured listeners. One evening, Wendy’s aunt informs her and her parents that Wendy is ready to be trained in the ways of womanhood. She must spend less time playing and imagining with her brothers, move out of the nursery and into a room of her own, and begin learning to be a lady. On her last night in the nursery, Wendy awakens to the soft crying of a boy, sitting on the floor beside her bed. She sweetly asks him why he is crying. Soon, Wendy learns that the boy’s name is Peter Pan and that he is from Neverland. He also admits that he is crying because he can’t get his shadow to stick, so she sews it onto his feet for him. Later, Peter (played by Jeremy Sumpter) reveals that he comes in the evenings to listen to her tell stories. He asks her to come back to Neverland with him so that she can tell more stories to him and the Lost Boys. She asks if she can bring her brothers along, and Peter agrees. With the help of a little fairy dust and lots of happy thoughts, the Darling children and Peter fly away to Neverland, where Wendy, John, and Michael are caught up in the exciting conflict between the wonderful Peter Pan and the absolutely evil Captain Hook. After several adventures, Wendy realizes that she is forgetting more and more about her parents every hour that goes by. She now must decide if she will stay with Peter, who can only give her the friendship of a boy, or return home to her parents, who love her dearly, before they forget her as she has nearly forgotten them. Will she stay with Peter in the land where she will never grow up, or will she return to a place where becoming a woman is inevitable?

Peter Pan, although a fun family movie, certainly earns its PG rating. This movie involves some frightening elements, including very ugly and creepy pirates throughout and a scene involving evil mermaids. Although ugliness and creepiness is what you can expect from pirates, these mermaids aren’t your average sweet, fish-like ladies. In fact, these disturbing mutant-looking beings, with their fish teeth and webbed hands, reminded me more of The Pirates of the Caribbean mermaids than Disney mermaids. One of the creatures even tries to drown another character. Even I found the mermaids, and some of the pirates, to be creepy and disturbing – and I am sure young children would agree with me. Another scary part is the scene in the Black Castle. Frightening carvings line the walls of the castle, and skeletons are chained to rocks inside the castle. In addition, Hook’s pirates gag three of the children characters and leave them dangling from a rock in the Black Castle, where they are supposed to drown when the tide rises. At random times throughout the movie, the evil Captain Hook frequently kills members of his crew for irritating him. I found these killings to be unnecessary, especially for a PG film, and slightly disturbing, although they did serve to display Hook’s vile nature. Some other scary parts of the movie included the fight scenes between the Lost Boys and the pirates (particularly the duels between Peter Pan and Hook), the deaths of a couple fairies, a quick image of Hook’s handless arm without the hook, and a red-eyed, Hook-hungry crocodile. Because of the numerous scary parts of this movie, I would not recommend this film to children under the age of ten or to older, more sensitive children. 

In addition to the scary parts of the movie, Peter Pan also involved a bit of (clean) romance between some of the child characters. In one of the scenes, Princess Tiger Lily accidentally catches John and Michael in one of her traps. As they hang upside down in the air, their nightshirts flip down over their heads, uncovering their bare bodies, but the screen only shows their backsides. Later, Tiger Lily kisses John in thanks for saving her and Michael from a pirate. The major romance, however, is between Peter Pan and Wendy. At the beginning of the story, Wendy’s aunt tells the young girl and her parents that Wendy has “a woman’s chin” with a “hidden kiss” on her lips, even though Wendy is not even thirteen. Wendy’s father even urges his daughter to “grow up.” On top of these promptings from her elders, Wendy wakes up one night to see a boy, who can apparently fly, hovering over her bed. The boy immediately flies away when he realizes Wendy is awake. Later, Wendy’s teacher at school catches her drawing a picture of herself in bed with the strange boy flying above her. The boy returns the next night, introducing himself as Peter Pan. Wendy appears quite spellbound by the dashing boy and tries twice to give him a kiss, but fails. When Wendy and her brothers arrive in Neverland with Peter, the Lost Boys, who call Peter their father, ask Wendy to be their mother. Although the situation sounds awkward, it turns out to be more like children playing house than anything. However, the “crush” between Wendy and Peter continues throughout the rest of the movie. In the end, all they do is share one kiss. The romance, therefore, is kept clean, although I found it to be rather sad that the relationship between Wendy and Peter was forced to exceed a simple, healthy friendship. 

To adult viewers, the relationship between Wendy and Peter can serve as a reminder that children should be allowed to be children. After all, being a child is a big part of the process of growing up, and forced maturity is as damaging to a child as pulling the petals of a rose apart is to a flower. Wendy suffered from a lot of distraction and heartbreak because her aunt introduced her to a part of growing up that she was not ready for. Her attention toward feelings of love even slightly marred her relationship with Peter. While the Bible does encourage believers to be spiritually mature (Hebrews 5:12-14 and 1 Corinthians 13:11-12), Jesus also encouraged believers to assume the faith and innocence of a little child (Matthew 11:25, 18:3-6, and 19:14). Overall, I think Peter Pan effectively reminds audiences of the need for kids to be kids as long as necessary. The film can also spark some valuable conversations between parents and adolescents about growing up and handling crushes.

Another valuable lesson that this movie can teach viewers is that everyone needs love – even mischievous, twelve-year-old boys who never want to grow up and always want to have fun. Peter Pan probably looked to Wendy for affection because he did not have a mother and father of his own to love him. Similarly, Wendy may have looked to Peter for love because of her slightly dissatisfying relationship with her father. At the climax of the movie, I believe it was good of Wendy to show Peter that she cared about him even though she didn’t agree with all of his decisions, but the kind of love that Peter really needed was the love of a mother and father. 

Besides being appropriate material for family discussion, Peter Pan’s engaging storyline, fairy-tale feel, exciting conflict between good and evil, and absence of foul language makes it a fairly decent family movie. However, because of the violence, creepy scenes, and undercurrent of romance, I advise parents to be wary of letting younger and more sensitive children see this movie. No matter what the age of the child is, though, parents should be sure to discuss this movie as a family. Overall, I do suggest Peter Pan as a decent family flick, but I would not rank it as high as some more wholesome fantasy movies such as Nanny McPhee, Nanny McPhee Returns, or the Narnia films.