National Geographic: Tornado Intercept (2005)

Tornado Intercept is a fairly fast-paced and interesting show about how lifelong tornado chaser Sean Casey (in his pre-Storm Chasers salad days) built his prototype Tornado Intercept Vehicle -- a 7-ton steel-chassis fortress-on-wheels with no AC or amenities -- and drove it from L.A. to Kansas for 5 weeks of tornado hunting. His goal was to drive the amateur-welded TIV, funded by his house mortgage, into a live tornado and come out the other side with IMAX film footage that would serve as proof-of-concept for investors in further film production. It's all seat-of-the-pants stuff and he jokes about how bad it smells inside the TIV but science and the thrill of discovery play prominently here too. Casey lucks out and teams up a white knight in a famed meteorologist who has funded the construction of several Storm Doppler trucks to bring radar analysis out to the field, pinpoint tornado development, and predict touchdown tracks. Each man benefits from this collaboration because Doppler cannot analyze wind speeds lower than 30 feet above ground while the TIV can take direct measurements on the ground. Even so, fortune does not smile on them. The previous season saw 500 tornadoes across the midwest but the current season brought only 150. Some storms prove impossible to film and human error comes into play too. It is only on the last day that they see and achieve a close encounter with a tornado. That footage is not as impressive as one would hope but the documentary overall has some beautiful shots of approaching tornadoes and near misses. Do not listen to complainers who imply "If you've seen one tornado, you've seen them all." Where is their thrill of discovery? Love of science? Sense of adventure? IMAX film makers and lovers tend to have these things in spades. Of course it's not HD -- it's IMAX! I will never understand why anyone complains about watching a film meant for 50-foot screens on a 50-inch screen. They would complain about a Hasselblad print out of sheer ignorance. 3.5 stars.