An important and exciting aspect of Hollywood is the summer blockbusters. Summer is practically Christmas for the movie business, the most wonderful time of the year, when people can head to the movie theater and escape into wham-bang, edge-of-your-seat spectacle. A platonic ideal for such entertainment is 1996’s “Twister,” directed by Jan de Bont, a loud and fast disaster flick energized by thrilling action set pieces and grounded by the believable, human performances of Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt. The recently released “Twisters” is a buoyantly propulsive, crowd-pleasing piece of popcorn entertainment.
While technically “Twisters” could be characterized as a legacy sequel à la “Top Gun: Maverick” or “Ghostbusters: Afterlife,” “Twisters” wisely eschews any easy pieces of nostalgia bait. No characters from the 1996 movie are alluded to, and save for one blink-and-you-’ll-miss-it easter egg, there are no specific references. Thank goodness for small miracles, I have to say to that. “Twisters” attitude seems to be like that of a chef in the kitchen, following the recipe of the 1996 movie (winds and rain, destroyed Midwest towns, good-looking scientists falling in love while racing through storms), but substituting their own personal ingredients.
Whereas “Twister” took an old-fashioned screwball comedy and spun it into a contemporary disaster flick, “Twisters” filters a fizzy romantic comedy through the lens of an Amblin adventure yarn. Director Lee Isaac Chung brings the ability to connect his characters to their settings that he displayed so well in his Oscar-winning Sundance break-out “Minari,” and there is a true sense of wonder as stars Daisy Edgar-Jones and Glen Powell do the “Spielberg Face,” gazing up at the sky in wonder at a phenomenon they can scarcely take in.
Edgar-Jones (“Normal People”) brings a vulnerable charm and affability to the character of Kate, a once bright-eyed stormchaser who once dreamed of finding a way to “kill tornadoes.” Tragedy strikes Kate when miscalculations she makes in the field lead to the deaths of three close friends. Five years later, an emotionally closed-off Kate works in the office of a weather service in New York City.
She doesn’t chase tornadoes anymore, but perhaps reports of a higher number of tornadoes in the Midwest area known colloquially as “Tornado Alley” perks her interest more than she would admit. It doesn’t take long for the movie to get Kate back to the flat land of Oklahoma, lured by her old friend, Javi (Anthony Ramos), with the promise of technology that will allow scientists to study tornadoes closer than ever and, hopefully, predict the storm’s path and save human lives. Alongside Javi and a group of Ivy League stuffed-shirts, including future Superman David Corenswet, Kate will study tornadoes for a shady insurance company.
No sooner has Kate arrived in Oklahoma than she meets brash cowboy with a megawatt smile Tyler Owens (Glen Powell), a Youtuber who drives his Chevy straight into tornadoes for the views. Beside him is a ragtag team made up of actors Sasha Lane, Brandon Perea, Tunde Abebimpe, and Katy O’Brian, who are all game but not given nearly enough to do. In his introductory scene, gathering a posse of fans around him as he films a video, wearing a Tom Cruise-like shit-eating grin and yelling, “If you feel it, chase it,” Powell announces himself as a true blue movie star. He demonstrates an effortless ability to connect with the movie camera and pull all of the light and focus in the frame toward himself. Powell is just as fun to watch as a tornado ripping through a small town.
The serious Kate and the showboat Tyler predictably butt heads and exchange snark. She pegs him as a shallow and unprofessional content creator, making light of the science, and his first impression of her is that of a corporate sell-out. However, as the two groups travel from tornado to tornado, Kate learns that Tyler’s passion for meteorology matches her own, and Tyler is able to see Kate’s desire to help others through her scientific research. Feelings between the two deepen, and by the third act, they are gazing into each other’s eyes intensely. Powell and Edgar-Jones are both old hands at conveying romantic feelings on the cinematic screen and they give it their all, but all of the looks and smiles only go so far in covering up a mild lack of chemistry.
While the characters that populate “Twisters” are not the most fleshed-out, Chung directs with a graceful, humanistic sensitivity. Even during the spectacle and set pieces, Chung’s camera focuses on the character’s reactions and the devastation left in the path of the tornadoes. Dialogue is delivered by the actors in a loose, just-go-with-it manner that lets the audience know which science babble to pay attention to and which to gloss over. There’s nothing pretentious and somber about “Twisters.” Like with the 1996 original, there’s a ridiculousness to the movie that allows the audience to relax and just have fun with it.
In “Twisters,” the characters are constantly on the move, driving at high speeds toward tornadoes, sprinting through farm fields, and dodging flying debris. This perpetual motion gives the movie a rousing sense of propulsion. Scenes flow from one to another with the stomach-swooping pull of a roller-coaster. Chung’s feeling for the environment and spatial geometry of a scene gives the action sequences an honest sense of danger. The final set piece (spoilers!) – when a tornado sucks up the fire from a refinery and goes on to threaten the characters cowering in the movie palace of a small town – must be seen on a big screen with popcorn and soda in hand and booming surround sound all around.
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