I laughed when I first heard about this film, I knew right away I had to watch it. I don't know if Stonados was meant to be a ripoff or homage to Sharknado since there are so many connections that can be made between the two films, one big noticeable connection is the ending where a vehicle with explosives is driven into the tornado to destroy it. Ripoff or not this film is amusing like Sharknado though in my opinion Stonados is slightly better in overall quality.The idea of tornadoes of throwing large stones sounds interesting, but it sounds more interesting you add in the part where the stones explodes, that's where your expectations goes up even more.In the end I've enjoyed this film, it's fun tongue-in-cheek entertainment.

After the surprise success of Asylum's SHARKNADO, the current trend for these B-movie disaster/monster combos seems to be tornadoes mixed with something else. STONADOS has to be one of the silliest of these ideas, as it's a film where tornadoes are mixed with stones due to some ancient prophecy or some such. It's all nonsense anyway, because tons of people are killed when tornadoes lift debris off the ground and chuck it at them, so why bother with this whole stone angle?Needless to say that this SyFy Channel production is pretty much devoid of any kind of originality or sense. It stars B-movie stalwart Sebastian Spence (CRASH SITE: A FAMILY IN DANGER) as a journalist who makes it his job to chase storms; inevitably he teams up with the usual group of officials/scientists/investigators to try to track down the menace before too many people are killed. William B. Davis (BEHEMOTH) also shows up as an old timer with a budgie in one of the film's many random sub-plots.STONADOS is a mish-mash of disaster staples, all of them played out enthusiastically, if without much in the way of skill or discernible talent on the part of those involved. The CGI effects aren't quite bottom of the barrel stuff here, but they're still a far cry from those in THE AVENGERS, for instance. STONADOS is very much par for the course for this sub-genre.

Okay, I have no idea what "Sharknado" is, but I looked it up and this movie technically came out before Sharknado, it was only held back from being released because of a problem going on in Boston (where this movie takes place), so now that that's out of the way and reviewers stop thinking that this movie is a rip-off, here's what I think of Stonados.Stonados isn't some major-motion picture spectacular box office hit, it's a Sy-Fy TV movie from Vancouver. It doesn't have the best script or dialogue. To be honest though, I really liked it. I'm so glad that Stonados didn't bring in the enviro-hippie propaganda garbage by saying that the disaster was caused by global warming and pollution. The story was interesting and the acting wasn't bad, in fact William B. Davis (playing the role of Ben the lighthouse keeper) is my favorite actor and I've seen him in other movies and as the Cigarette Smoking Man in The X-Files, he and every other actor in this movie did an excellent job, given what they had to work with. The soundtrack wasn't bad and the special effects were a little lame but not as bad as in Dark Storm (2006) or Chernobyl Diaries (2012). If there's any two disaster movies you want to avoid, it's those ones, not Stonados.I do have to point out one thing; the intro scene is HILARIOUS! The tour guide lady getting sucked up into the tornado and the hysterical screaming of the old man standing next to her wasn't meant to be funny, but I ended up laughing, so did my little brother. Speaking of my little brother, he's 11, and this movie was totally safe for him to watch, so if you're looking for a horror movie for your kids with no nudity, no gore, etc. this one is a good choice. I think the worst word in it was "damn".

Stonados is one of those movies where you can tell from the title and plot-line that it is not a film to be taken seriously, and that is true of most SyFy original movies actually. It is like Sharknado as a disaster movie with giant stones, except for this viewer it was nowhere near as entertaining. Stonados does have a fun title idea and title, as well as an opening scene that is tense and to the point. The acting is fitting within the genre and the story itself, it is not great but none of it is anywhere near Tara Reid terrible(even the actor playing the man who tries to flirt with Joe's daughter and he was the weak link of the cast), at least the actors actually seem to be concerned about the situation. Stonados does have a very drab look to it though, and a vast majority of the special effects are poorly-textured and hurried-looking, and even for really big rocks the stones seemed out of proportion. There is a lot of dramatic music and there are one too many times where it does get too much and rather sluggish-sounding, while the script has a lot of terrible one-liners, technobabble that has a very make-it-up-as-you-go-along-without-checking-that-it-makes-sense vibe and one of the biggest and most clichéd understatements in any recent movie in "I think we might have ourselves a very big problem." The story had potential but was thinly structured and very predictably and ridiculously told. The science was wacky that you had the feeling that there was little research or scientific background behind the scenes, and then there's so many plot holes the size of large craters to fill a novel listing them. And there was little sense of threat(there were flashes but it was never consistent), thrills or suspense. Sharknado was a long way from great but was fun and kind of a guilty pleasure. That feeling is less frequent and more controlled in Stonados, but actually the movie also tries too hard to be dramatic and comes across as very overly-serious that it also forgets to be fun consequently and is devoid of almost all the ingredients characteristic of a disaster movie. The death scenes are few and between and what there is silly and very tame, again with little threat or sense of danger, and the father-daughter relationship amongst other relationships and dramatic conflicts dissolve into ham-fisted melodrama with no believability factor. The characters, excluding for a second that they are unlikeable stereotypes, we never do get to know, the pacing gets bogged down by the overly-serious tone and the direction also falls flat. Overall, Stonados is the sort of movie that we shouldn't take too seriously but when the movie itself takes itself too seriously it is difficult not to follow suit although you can't take what is thrown at you at face value. This is a case of trying too hard rather than not trying, but while there is far worse out there despite being from those behind Sharknado it wasn't very entertaining for me, sorry. 3/10 Bethany Cox