Runtime: 89 minutes
Release Date: November 23, 2013
Rating: NR
Director: Jason Bourque
Stonados is the perfect movie to whip out when you and your friends want something that will make you laugh your ass off. I know, because my roommate and I were laughing within the first five minutes.
Some poor tour guide has to lead a group of people around Plymouth Rock, which really really sucks if you ever see it in person. In fact, one of the members of that group points out that it's incredibly small right off the bat. A sudden storm whips up on the water, sends wind flying around, and causes everyone to run for their lives. The poor tour guide tries to grab on to the railing around the rock, but the wind carries her off. Small Rock Guy sees it happen in front of him, but he apparently disappears later because no one mentions her again. Oh, and the storm also carries off Plymouth Rock.
Joe (Paul Johansson), who looks as wooden here as he did on One Tree Hill, is a high school chemistry teacher working with his students and showing them a fake volcano. Yeah, because if there's one thing high school students love, it's craft projects done by The Brady Bunch. He gets a phone call from Maddy, his former friend and a current police officer, that she needs his help. Turns out that Plymouth Rock touched down in Boston, but no one in town seems to know what it is or where it came from.
We also get to meet Lee. Despite graduating from Harvard, he's the backup weekend weather man for a small local station. He also has a huge crush on Maddy, which might explain why she lets him by the police barrier and into the crime scene. We then learn that Joe and Lee were once best friends and storm chasers. Joe and his wife later became the top vulcanologists in the world, but he quit after she died to focus on their two kids. I guess chasing storms qualifies you to study volcanoes, which qualifies you to teach high school science?
Speaking of those kids, Jackson and Megan are easily two of the most annoying characters. Their dad asks them to stay together in one place, so they naturally split up. This leads to Megan and her friend picking up two guys who are clearly in their twenties and far too old to hang out with teenage girls. One guy even points out that he's good with high school girls. Ew. Dude, I have a policy officer you should meet.
Joe somehow determines that the storm is picking up rocks and depositing those stones elsewhere and that the storm is coming their way. He heads to the marina to find his kids, which leads to him literally walking at a slow pace through a marina and shouting his kids' names over and over again, seriously, dad? That's like tots embarrassing.
Luckily, he manages to find his kids, scold them, and make them go home before the storm hits. But uh-oh! There's another storm coming! This one will be way worse. Maddy, Lee, and Joe decide to work together, but it really just means that they go to the big weather people, tell them their findings, and basically get laughed out of the room.
Cut to several days later because I don't feel like recapping some of the ridiculousness. Weather lady comes back to them and apologizes for not believing them because her new data indicates that they were right all along. Joe finds out that his kids didn't listen to him about sticking close to home and sneaked out to a hockey game or some shit. The three go to find them, but Joe wants to avoid the busy streets because there are literally stones raining down. One of the best moments occurs when a lady on the street gets hit by one, which sends her crashing through a stone wall. All you see are her hands waving from behind a CGI rock.
Oh, and did I mention that the stones are for some reason super cold and exploding? Yup, that explains why they get stuck in an alley in a big cargo vans with rocks all around. Instead of, you know getting out and walking, they keep trying to drive through as the rocks go off around them. One blows out their back tires, so they have to run to the stadium, which decided to finally evacuate the guests after seeing exploding rocks outside.
Luckily, Joe somehow has a flashlight on him and the group finds the kids. Weather lady gets them a massive military weapon, which Joe says he can shoot into the storm and end it. Lee gets to document everything with his dashboard camera, so the news lets everyone know the deal. Weather lady starts to apologize once again, but a huge stone flattens her in front of them.
Joe goes to shoot, the gun jams, and he and Lee somehow know what to do without speaking. They get in an SUV, drive it close to the storm, set the weapon, and jump out of the SUV. This scene is so funny! The car literally looks like it's going five miles an hour, but they jump out and roll across the ground in slow motion. No worries though, the weapon saves the day!
Stonados then jumps to a few months later or something like that. Maddy is watching the kids and cooking dinner for Joe like a cute little family. They watch Lee as a weatherman on television because I guess he couldn't get a better job after saving the world. He sends a special shout out to his fiance Maddy and she gets all giddy. I guess he doesn't have a problem with his fiance playing house with his best friend? Joe then comes home from teaching at Harvard again with his cool guy look of a corduroy jacket and jeans. He sits down to eat with the kids before they all plan to go out for a game, and the movie ends with him making a joke about the bad weather.
Lesson learned: storms are bad peeps!
Can't believe I almost forgot this, but the Cigarette Smoking Man from The X-Files is in this movie! He basically lives close to the water, calls Joe with updates about the storm, and talks a lot to his bird. Don't get too excited, he's not in there very long.
