TMS Movie Review: Twisters
(Amblin Entertainment / Universal Pictures)
Unlike Joseph Kosinski’s Top Gun: Maverick (2022)—where I did not agree with the narrative that the legacy sequel was “even better than the original”—I went into Lee Isaac Chung’s Twisters with a more open mind. I thought Maverick was fine, but ultimately about the same amount of popcorn action as Tony Scott’s Top Gun (1986). With Jan de Bont’s Twister (1996), I have neither nostalgia nor appreciation for the film, even though I remember it being popular when I was a kid. So I thought, hey, maybe this will be the first way overdue sequel I actually enjoy more than the first flick. Turns out…maybe I just don’t care about tornadoes.
Set in modern day Oklahoma, Kate Carter (Daisy Edgar-Jones) relocates to NYC after becoming the sole survivor of an amateur group of tornado chasers who experience an extra tragic natural disaster. But five years later, Kate gets a visit from Javi (Anthony Ramos), an old friend from her tornado adventures, who successfully pitches a new project in their home state that has the best, up-to-date technology to study the biggest tornadoes out there. Back in OK, Kate discovers her and Javi’s main competition for chasing the weather is Tyler Owens (Glen Powell), who is seemingly more interested in social media views than documenting science. Maura Tierney co-stars as Kate’s mother; Sasha Lane, Katy O’Brian and Brandon Perea are some of Tyler’s crew; David Corenswet plays a colleague of Javi’s; and Daryl McCormack appears as Kate’s deceased boyfriend.
(Amblin Entertainment / Universal Pictures)
As far as soft reboots go, Twisters chooses to not continue the story from before, with no former characters even returning for a quick cameo or supporting role. We get the token Easter eggs and callbacks a few times, but beyond the general concept, the plot completely stands on its own. Unfortunately, even with the appealing cast and exciting action sequences, I was just reminded how easy it is for natural disaster epics to fall into hokey schlock. And not even ‘so bad, it’s good’ schlock. Natural disaster movies, such as the popular hits of Ronald Neame’s The Poseidon Adventure (1972) or John Guillermin’s The Towering Inferno (1974), really depend on the spectacle making up for the paper thin characters and silly writing. Heck, James Cameron’s Titanic (1997) is technically a disaster movie and that completely works on all sides. With Twister and Twisters, there’s just something about a CG designed mega windstorm that doesn’t captivate me as other disasters on film have. It also doesn’t help our lead noticeably struggles to keep her in-role accent at various points, even though Edgar-Jones is usually a good actress.
The new feature is directed by Chung, who broke through critically with his family drama Minari (2020) four years ago, and is the latest indie filmmaker to be assigned a major studio production. There is some visual flare to the direction, but it mostly feels like any gun-for-hire made this picture. I guess if watching people trying not to get sucked into tornadoes sounds like a blast to you, you might have fun with Twisters. If not, I would just consider something else.