In 1996, a movie called Twister came out. It had state-of-the-art visual effects that were nominated for an Oscar, and it also broke new technological ground by being the first movie ever released on DVD (tell all your friends that little nugget of info and feel like Ken Jennings). In the 18 years (holy crap, math!) since Twister, there have been a bevy of natural disaster movies to try to innovate, or at least capitalize, on the earlier success. With the trailer of the new film Into the Storm, which is due out in August, we now appear to have a film that is as visually, and probably thematically, as close to Twister as any pretender to come before it.

A found-footage natural-disaster movie? Now why didn’t everyone think of that? A Cloverfield but for tornadoes and such. Brilliant! But, wait; IS that found-footage? Doesn’t some of that look decidedly not found-footagey? The official synopsis says “A group of high school students document the events and aftermath of a devastating tornado.” Does that also include affixing tiny cameras to everybody’s eyes and apparently onto the wings of birds? I’m very confused by just what this movie’s tactic is; it seems like it’s kids taping things, but very clearly all of that footage can’t have been obtained, within the internal logic of the film, by the video cameras of high school students in rural middle America. Also, this is tornado country, right? Why are there no basements or storm shelters? That’s like building a castle without a moat.

At any rate, the cast is good, including Thorin Oakenshield himself Richard Armitage, The Walking Dead‘s Sarah Wayne Callies, and even Veep‘s Matt Walsh playing the Cary Elwes role. This is a very intriguing looking movie to say the very least. There’s no sharks in the ‘nado, but it doesn’t look like it needs it. F5 material, clearly. Certainly a worthy windblown successor to Twister, which is now old enough to vote.

Are you all as confused as I am about this or do you think I’m making it too complicated. Let me know!