‘Twisters’ Movie Review: No Cows, But We’ve Got A Forgettable Spiritual Sequel
Photo from IMDb
From Jeremy Kibler
Say what you want about 1996’s Twister. Trading in dinosaurs for really bad weather that made cows fly, Jan de Bont’s summer movie spectacle came at a right time when we hadn’t yet experienced a glut of disaster blockbusters with cutting-edge effects. Was it silly? Absolutely, but it was a fun, thrilling Amblin crowd-pleaser with a winning cast elevating thin writing. It also wasn’t calling to be sequelized, with Bill Paxton no longer with us and Helen Hunt not returning. 28 years later, Twisters is more of a retitled remake than a true sequel, but whatever it is, this “spiritual sequel” is serviceable, albeit as forgettable as last week’s weather forecast.
It’d be too much of a contrivance to have another soon-to-be divorced couple of storm chasers being brought back together by a tornado (and this happily isn’t a legacy sequel with Jo and Bill’s children following in Ma and Pa’s footsteps). This time, the storm-chasing types are Kate Carter (Daisy Edgar-Jones), an Oklahoma grad student who’s been working on her PhD, and Tyler Owens (Glen Powell), a macho Internet superstar who’s always camera-ready. Five years prior, Kate lost her boyfriend and friends to a violent storm they were chasing and trying to disrupt with the help from data device “Dorothy” (the film’s only overt connection to the first film) and stuffing it with absorbent powder from diapers.
Though Kate has left the field to live in Brooklyn and work for the National Weather Service, friend and fellow survivor Javi (a charismatic but then tamped-down Anthony Ramos) brings her back home to help with a research project. It involves testing a revolutionary 3D modeling system that could potentially save lives affected by the storms. Once Kate crosses paths with self-proclaimed “tornado wrangler” Tyler, they banter and size each other up. He’s the leader of adrenaline-junkie yahoos who sell merch to support local disaster relief but also drive pick-up trucks straight into the tornado and shoot fireworks up the funnel. Will these enemies partner up and possibly get together once the skies clear?
Director Lee Isaac Chung (2020’s lovely immigrant drama Minari) would seem like an odd choice for a spectacle-driven tentpole like Twisters—and good on him—but growing up in the tornado alley of Oklahoma, Chung gets the down-home milieu right with a well-observed, non-condescending eye. His slice-of-life sensibilities decidedly carry over here until the dark clouds surface and it’s time to get chasing. The film does also try to show concern for the extras affected by the tornadoes without just being about destruction.
The screenplay by Mark L. Smith (The Revenant) sets up an interesting dichotomy between a science-minded character and an adrenaline junkie, then shakes up that dynamic a little with a possible love triangle. However, it would rather deal in a gust of clichés with flimsy character types and arcs, as well as a needless subplot involving shady real estate and a pre-Superman David Corenswet as a gum-chewing baddie. The country-fried soundtrack also features some egregiously on-the-nose song choices. For instance, after Kate tricks Tyler into waiting for some iced tea while she gets a jump on him, these lyrics sound, “Boys are too easy…got ya sippin’ my sweet tea.” If that weren’t enough, there’s a song about how you can’t take Oklahoma out of the girl when she goes back to her childhood home…in Oklahoma!
Now, for the reason audiences are showing up: the tornadoes! The effects are solid, but to be honest, the big-screen tornadoes from nearly 30 years ago were far more menacing, and perhaps that’s because we had nothing to compare them to in a tiny tornadoes-wrecking-havoc movie market. Following a chilling, effectively visceral opening (with recognizable actors doing what they can to land an impact before getting sucked up by the tornado), the film takes a while to match that same level of terror. The lone exception is a sequence set at a rodeo that ends in the empty swimming pool of a motel, and then, as most likely a nod to the original movie’s set-piece at the drive-in playing The Shining, a climax inside a small-town movie theater.
As the tank top-wearing Helen Hunt stand-in, Daisy Edgar-Jones is fine. She’s plucky enough and hits the emotional beats with enough gravitas, but it’s tough sharing the space alongside someone with F5 magnetism like Glen Powell. Though it comes as no surprise, Powell loads on the dreamy charisma and “howdy ma’am” swagger with plenty of Crest Whitestrip-ready grins. Partially what’s on the page but probably more so because of what Powell brings to the role, there is a human being underneath Tyler Owens’ cocky preening. The question of whether or not Kate and Tyler get together in the end doesn’t even begin to hold the same level of stakes that the original characters’ relationship did. In fact, this film jarringly ends like a dopey romantic comedy at the airport.
Looking back today, the crowded cast in Twister was like Character Actor Central (i.e. Lois Smith, a pre-Boogie Nights Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jeremy Davies). While most of the characters received the most basic of traits, they made their moments count. Here, so many exciting actors are thanklessly cast in stock roles that give them so little to play, including Brandon Perea (Nope), Sasha Lane (American Honey), and Katy O’Brian (Love Lies Bleeding), who never register as more than faces in a rambunctious group. Whereas Jami Gertz’s wonderfully neurotic therapist character Melissa was the audience surrogate (and refreshingly not an evil fiancée stereotype) in Twister, we do get Harry Harden-Paton as the one outsider, a British journo doing a piece on Tyler, but he gets lost in the shuffle. Then there’s Maura Tierney, who always adds a dose of comfort just by showing up and does just that in a few scenes as Kate’s warm but no-nonsense mother.
Without human drama that’s really worth our cares or enough armrest-clenching tension, Twisters doesn’t have much staying power to stand on its own or outrun its predecessor. It’s more of an indifferent sequel that will get sucked up into the ether by summer’s end.
Grade: 2.5/5
Twisters is currently in theaters.
