A European flying-saucer potboiler that went directly to home video in the US, BLUE TORNADO shakily attempts to combine the gung-ho spirit of TOP GUN with the magical aura of CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND. Diehard sci-fi and aircraft enthusiasts constitute the target audience.
Set on a NATO base in Italy's mountain country, the action commences when yank fighter pilots Alex Longby (Dirk Benedict) and Philip (Ted McGinley) fly a practice run near an ill-reputed peak. A sudden flash of light engulfs both planes, and only Alex returns to base. He finds himself suspected
of having caused his best buddy's death through bad piloting. To clear his name Alex turns to lovely and convenient government UFO investigator Christina (Patsy Kensit) to determine the nature of that strange flash. It seems that the mountain range has long been a focus of strangeness, and Alex
persuades his superiors to let him and fellow airmen re-enact the fatal flight under close supervision. The lightburst returns, and this time dancing, glowing globules surround the squadron. One flyboy panics and tries to shoot the entities; he ends up crashing, and Alex leads the remaining
aircraft back home. His reputation is now vindicated, but Alex chafes when authorities label the phenomenon as freak lightning and close the case.
The pseudo-religious finale has Alex setting off for the mountains on foot. Just as a flying-saucer expert had earlier prophesied, the hero receives a benediction-type shower of "angel-hair" filaments from the sky, followed by the miraculous resurrection of Philip courtesy of the benevolent but
resolutely low-budget E.T.'s, who manifest themselves only as ethereal blue-white luminescence.
The mystic bent of BLUE TORNADO makes an interesting, if unintentional commentary on the belief-system of UFO lore, but the picture won't convert any skeptics, even with a closing statement attributed to Goethe: "There's life on every star." Stylistically the film is more akin to schmaltzy
service docudramas, where daring young men risk all to break the sound barrier or whatever. There's the obligatory heart-tugging moments of Phil with his happy family, just to sharpen the pathos when he's lost (later Alex helps Phil's kids send their father a love letter via model rocket shot into
the heavens). There's a noteworthy concession to reality though, in the movie's F-104 aircraft, which look genuinely weather-beaten and used, in contrast to the gleaming machines seen in Hollywood spectaculars and recruiting commercials. The pilot's-eye-view aerial scenes are fairly impressive,
once they finally roll around.
The performances are workmanlike; characters thankfully skip the immature top-gun macho banter, but dialogue descends into chronic banality during Alex's strictly-by-the-manual romance with Christina. Quoth she, during a bedroom interlude: "Alex, do you think we're alone? ... I mean, in the
universe?" What, nobody reads Goethe? (Profanity, sexual situations.) leave a comment
