Twisters (2024)
Directed by: Lee Isaac Chung
Starring: Daisy Edgar-Jones, Glen Powell, Anthony Ramos
Rivalling stormchaser teams, massive tornados, clever science contraptions and a female lead braving inclement weather in tight tops. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, as they say. But let’s put cynicism aside: Twisters is actually quite entertaining.
Lee Isaac Chung’s Twisters, executive produced by none other that Steven Spielberg, is neither a sequel nor a straight remake but rather a re-imagining of the genre classic Twister from 1996. The film tips its hat to the original – even the Dorothy invention makes a cameo – but otherwise updates characters and action for the ’20s.
Rivalling stormchasers
The movie cuts straight to the chase, opening with a dramatic sequence where a group of students chase a tornado as part of a science project. As one does in high school. The brain behind the project, who also has a natural talent for predicting the behavior of tornados, is Kate Carter, played by Daisy Edgar-Jones. However, things soon take a disastrous turn as the group underestimate the force of the storm they’re tangling with…
Five years later, we find Kate working as a meteorologist in New York City, still tortured by the trauma. Then Javi, one of her old student friends, comes to see her. He has kept chasing storms and is now an entrepreneur looking to recruit Kate’s tornado-spotting talents to his team. Reluctantly, Kate agrees to give it one week.
Returning to Oklahoma, she joins Javi’s team of science geeks who are using a cutting-edge radar-system to map tornado dynamics. They immediately run into a rival team, the Tornado Wranglers, a rowdy gang of YouTube personalities led by the handsome but insufferably smug Tyler (Glen Powell).
Intense storm chasing action and equally intense rivalry follows, as the teams try to outmaneuver each other. Which, when you think about it, doesn’t make a lot of sense. The Wranglers are all about spectacular social media content, Javi’s team do research, it’s not like they compete for the same audience. But anyway, it is soon evident that Kate’s instincts give Javi and crew the edge.
It’s all fun and games until the harsh reality of life in Tornado Alley comes knocking in the form of devastated towns and lost livelihoods. And it turns out that the wild ideas Kate once had about how to fight tornados might not actually be valid. With some help from an unexpected quarter, Kate refines her idea and takes it out in the field, only to come face to face with the most massive tornado imaginable…
Predictable but entertaining
While being just as predictable as its predecessor – you can pretty much guess the remaining plot 30 minutes into the film – Twisters actually does a lot of things right. The script manages to give the principals some character moments that feel less contrived/more earnest than ususal for the genre. It is fast-paced, serving up several well-made action scenes, and it is far more bloodthirsty than the original, letting a good number of people get sucked into the skies or be crushed by flying hardware. The storms look very good and the climactic mega-tornado picking up extra energy from what appears to be an oil refinery is impressive and a worthy end boss. And there is some pretty nice cinematography of Midwest vistas to enjoy as well.
The lead actors do a good job. Daisy Edgar-Jones brings a subtle sadness to Kate and Anthony Ramos is credible as the conflicted Javi. But it is Powell who is the movie star here, getting to play both obnoxious social media personality and unexpected humanitarian. I also enjoyed Maura Tierney in a small part as Kate’s mom.
Predictable it may be, and the southern rock/country pop soundtrack a little too on-the-nose, and some side characters too one-note. But unlike many other reviewers, I don’t think this is worse than Jan de Bont’s original. That one did have a bigger name cast, but didn’t use it all that well. While not one for the ages, Twisters is at least its equal, and a genuinely entertaining watch that will satisfy most disaster film fans. I don’t do half-point ratings, so I’ll boost Twisters to a charitable 4.
Rating: 4/5