text: I hope that Matt Dorff's original script for this was much better (there are signs of it - dialogue that should happen well before big f/x scenes (to introduce characters) that would make sense much earlier, is jammed in later in the time-line; perhaps the original script was for a longer running-time. But maybe not -- in any case, this reeks. Every character is uninteresting, and *everybody* speaks expository passages as if they are speaking the word of god. There are characters that are entirely expository -- Dianne Wiest's "Secretary Abbot" is just awful, explaining things to her assistant (and incidentally us), in endless speeches that NO ONE would say to anyone, ever, in real life (when she isn't explaining things to her assistant that she already knows, her assistant explains things to HER that SHE already knows._ There are characters who are entirely one-dimensional -- the evil power company guy; the pilot who will just NOT SHUT UP about his personal life and concentrate on his job. The "well-meaning" power-company superdooperuber hacker-guy who can crash<br /><br />*everything* in Chicago (including the phones) -- and then gives the oh-no-what-have-I- done speech (but not leave himself a back door?). The crusading reporter who abandons her principles at the drop of a hat? The power-company shift supervisor who ABANDONS HIS POST in the middle of the worst crisis in Chicago since the Fire -- with no consequences? Hospitals ABANDONED by the doctors and nurses during the crisis (I'm not kidding, that's in the movie.) <br /><br />Oh yeah, and it's filled with Hollywood morality clichés -- generally women are good, men are evil, unless influenced by a woman (the ultimate is the punk with the gun -- deprived of a woman's influence, he literally goes insane); an evil stupid act (like what the reporter did with hacker-bozo) is all right, so long as you 'mean well'. Evil men die, capitalist evil men die as horribly as possible, everybody else lives (well, except Randy Quaid). And did I hear someone say that the nuclear electrical power generating stations had to shut down because there wasn't electricity to run the safety systems (think about that one)?<br /><br />There is one ray of sunshine (if you'll pardon the expression) -- Randy Quaid basically plays his character from "Independence Day" (you know -- "Hello boys - I'm baaaack!") -- this time as a storm chaser with an infinite-range SUV and superdooper batteries for his camcorders. Nevertheless, they kill him -- mostly, it seems, so that the audience will appreciate that tornados are pretty dangerous things (kinda shallow, that.)<br /><br />Give this one a pass.