Twisters (2024)
Twisters has landed, and it’s a rush. Finally, we have a straight-ahead, old-school, apolitical, white-knuckle, edge-of-the-seat, no-holds-barred, fun-as-all-get-out summer blockbuster. It’s been a long, sedate season, and dangit, I needed this. Who’s with me?
The movie isn’t a remake of the original, per se. More of a reboot. There’s plenty of homage to the 1996 movie, though, such as the “Dorothy” machine with the same Judy Garland decal. Or the double twisters, which were called “sisters” in the original and “twins” in the new movie. Both movies have a team that chases for mercenary reasons while the other team is all about science and helping people stay safe during tornadoes.
And Dodge Rams are things in both movies. Big things. Heaven forbid anyone drive a Hummer or a Jeep.
This latest iteration brings together veteran storm chasers Kate and Tyler, as well as their respective teams, who are in an unspoken competition to get the closest to the latest tornadoes, which are unusually active in Oklahoma. Tyler is a hotshot YouTuber whose red truck has all kinds of buttons and gadgets. He can even anchor his truck to the ground while he lights off fireworks inside tornadoes. They’re more tourist attractions than imminent threats when he’s around.
Kate is an Oklahoma native who works behind a desk at a weather service in New York City. She has always been gifted at sniffing out where and when a tornado is going to hit, but after almost her entire team get picked off one by one, including her boyfriend, in an especially bad F5, she’s traumatized and discouraged.
Kate might get a second chance, though. Her one surviving team member, Javi, who drove the van and constantly snacked on Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, is back with a proposition. He’s been in the military, and now has a fancy new system for tracking and measuring tornadoes and wants Kate to come back to Oklahoma to see it in action. And for old time’s sake.
Still feeling traumatized, Kate says she’ll give him a week. She has a job and a new life, after all.
One of the things about this new movie that’s different from the original is that instead of putting the teams into little boxes, there’s some crossover as far as everyone’s motives are concerned. I won’t give away who lands where, no pun intended, but suffice it to say that first impressions aren’t always correct.
Is Twisters better than the original? No, not really. I like them both. The technology has progressed quite a bit between the two films, not only in the way the films were made but the abundance of laptops in the new version, all of which mostly work perfectly despite dicey weather conditions.
I like that the characters have to adjust their initial assessments of each other and work together, well, at least some of them do, and the chemistry between Glen Powell and Daisy Edgar-Jones is adorable. Glen Powell in particular was a great choice for this movie because, as we’ve seen since his turn as Hangman in Top Gun: Maverick, he lives and breathes cocky and seems to be a fun guy.
The scenery in this movie is fantastic—the lines between actual locations and CGI are seamless. It also moves really fast and is highly entertaining, with some creative ways of taking shelter during the various tornadoes. Do they all work? I’m not going to ruin anything, but the obvious takeaway is that Twister is a movie.
The only thing that’s missing is the cameraderie between the team members. In the 1996 version Bill and Jo’s crew have all sorts of inside jokes and obvious history, which gives the viewer a chance to care about them more, but the new version’s teams are temporary by design and the characters aren’t quite as filled out.
While Twisters might not be especially deep, it doesn’t seem to have time for it, and it doesn’t hurt the film too much overall anyway. We might not have had a very exciting summer this year, movie-wise, but Twisters seems to have touched down at just the right time and made it all better.
Twisters is currently in theaters. Rated PG-13.
My grade: B+
Principal Cast: Daisy Edgar-Jones, Glen Powell, Anthony Ramos, Brandon Perea, Maura Tierney, Harry Hadon-Paton, Sasha Lane, Daryl McCormack, Kiernan Shipka, Nik Dodani, David Coranswet, Tunde Adebimpa, Katy O’Brien, David Born, Paul Scheer, Laura Poe, Austin Bullock, Stephen Oyoung
Directed by Lee Isaac Chung.
Written by Mark L. Smith, Joseph Kosinski, and Michael Crichton (novel).
I had a great time! I agree with you that we should have spent more time with the supporting "Tornadeo" crew, but I suppose that's because the film's mostly from Kate's POV and she doesn't join up with them until halfway through the movie.