Nearly thirty years have blown by since Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt stormed the screens and dominated the box office with the tornado epic Twister. Now, a fresh breed of storm chasers is gearing up to chase the wind. Twisters, featuring Daisy Edgar-Jones (Where the Crawdads Sing), Glen Powell (Top Gun: Maverick), and Anthony Ramos (Transformers: Rise of the Beasts), might not capture the original’s charm, but it promises enough disaster excitement to captivate summer audiences once more.
The film initially spends considerable time establishing Kate (Edgar-Jones), a former storm chaser from Oklahoma now relegated to a desk job tracking weather in New York following a devastating tornado incident. She’s reluctantly drawn back into the field by her ex-teammate and college friend Javi (Anthony Ramos), after the obligatory “recruiting the hero to return” phase. Once past these familiar tropes, the story intriguingly shifts dynamics from its predecessor to drive the plot forward.
Apart from incorporating the “Dorothy” sensor system and paying homage to certain lines of dialogue, Twisters primarily serves as a spiritual successor to the 1996 film. Director Lee Isaac Chung (Minari) avoids the current trend of introducing “legacy” charactersâsuch as offspring or proteges of the originalsâin favor of delivering a straightforward disaster thriller reliant on the cast’s chemistry and robust action sequences akin to its predecessor. However, the film doesn’t fully embrace this direction until halfway through its runtime.
In contrast to the original’s science-driven, grassroots team led by Paxton and Hunt, Kate and her fellow protagonists in this film belong to a well-funded, corporate-sponsored group. Their counterparts are a wild, YouTube-famous team of “tornado wranglers” led by the charismatic Tyler Owens (Powell). Unfortunately, the action during this part of the film lacks intensity. There’s a void of real stakes, replaced instead by enthusiastic but hollow “whooping” and showboating, accompanied by cheesy dialogue and clichĂ©d catchphrases like “If you feel it, chase it!” The characters come off as shallow stereotypes, and even the talented cast members seem ill at ease with their roles.
Fortunately, once Kate and Tyler break away from their respective teams, the film significantly improvesâit just takes half the movie to get there. Powell finally unleashes his undeniable talent, Edgar-Jones becomes much more endearing, and the storm sequences finally start to make your heart race and your palms sweat. Even the supporting cast begins to find their rhythm, providing much-needed comic relief. Sadly, Javi (Ramos), who remains consistently well-written and performed throughout, is mainly used to awkwardly create a half-hearted pseudo-love triangle. This subplot lacks any real on-screen chemistry between the leads and ultimately goes nowhere in terms of physical affection.
Let’s face it, audiences aren’t flocking to Twisters for a groundbreaking love story. They’re there for a killer country soundtrack, good-looking people dodging elaborate tornado-related near-death experiences, and tearing through the rural American countryside in badass trucks. Eventually, Twisters delivers exactly that and that’s all anyone can really ask of it.
Score: 3.5 out of 5