Twisters is good for a tumble, take it for a spin

Director: Lee Isaac Chung Starring: Daisy Edgar-Jones, Glen Powell, Anthony Ramos Running Time: 122 minutes


The air smells different. Heavier. You lick your finger and hold it to the wind – has it changed direction. You breath deeply through the nose. A buttery scent. You hear it before you see it, pop – pop – pop. Making its way right for you is a whirlwind of cheesy lines, hot actors and outrageous special effects. The corn in the fields is ripped up in its wake, exploding into concessions. You lower your sunglasses. “My God”, you murmur, staring dead on at the chaos. “The movies…they’re back”. You grin. You need to chase that feeling.

The original Twister is as perfect a blockbuster as it gets – a dumb, fun spectacle packed with overqualified actors, backed up by expert craftspeople on the effects, led by action guru Jan de Bont. It did not break records, it was not anybody’s cHildhOOd, it just tore through multiplexes for the summer, gave everyone a thrill, and moved on. That it inspired a popular theme park ride is perfect, because that’s what it is, and to this day it holds up for Friday night hang outs and Sunday afternoon hangovers alike. This is what popcorn movies are for, not just working titles years down the line to excite shareholders, not as content assets that can make as much money being written off. Something to put butts in seats. That people have responded so enthusiastically to its simple but effective marketing campaign, stars on the red carpet, goofy posters, shows the appetite for that kind of movie is as strong as ever. Belated sequel Twisters faintly gestures at delving into deeper territory, but for the most part it knows exactly what it’s supposed to be, and delivers it.

This is not a legacy sequel in the typical sense, there are no awestruck cameos, and the Easter Eggs are brief and early. It’s more a spiritual successor, which is Hollywood talk for a movie having the same basic structure as another one. Where previously, Helen Hunt pursued tornadoes to overcome trauma, and Bill Paxton was reluctantly pulled back into twister hunting by the thrill of the hunt, here those motivations are combined in Daisy Edgar-Jones’ occasionally-accented Oklahoma gal Kate Cooper.

After an opening sequence disaster, Kate is wracked by guilt and PTSD, and the young meteorologist trades her big dreams of “taming” tornados for an office job in New York. Her old Javier (Anthony Ramos) has turned environmental entrepreneur, enlisting Kate to head home and study alongside his slickly funded company Storm Par. They’re well-funded, stacked with a crew of nerds (including upcoming Superman David Corenswet, sneeringly stern) and need Kate’s expertise, and near psychic sense for the way the wind is blowing, to map tornado patterns. If she could just get over her silly little trauma.

Hot on their heels is Glen Powell as yahoo streamer Tyler Owens. Streaming storms, throwing out tees with his face on them, and swaggering up to call Kate a “city girl” (he takes her to literally is not her first rodeo), it’s a role Powell leaps into with aplomb, one which shows just how firmly Powell has seized the reins of a grand tradition of Hollywood archetypes, from McConaughey to Cruise to Reynolds to Flynn, Powell embraces the veneer of the million-dollar shit-eating grin. It’s a parallel to Cary Elwes rival from the first movie, but Twisters puts a fun spin on the original setup of storm chasing slobs vs snobs. It’s not just that we grow suspicious of the source of Javi’s funding, or see Tyler’s hidden depths (insofar as a character like this has any depth at all). Alongside Daisy, we get swept up in the wake of Tyler and his ragtag team because they’re just better craic. Powell’s jerkish charm is just too powerful, backed up by the charming but underutilised sidekick team, including American Honey’s Sasha Lane, Nope’s Brandon Perea, Love Lies Bleeding breakout Kate O’Brien and Tunde Adebimpe from TV on the Radio. More devoted to the science than he first appears, full of good ol’ boy charm and conscious of helping those left in the wake of climate disaster, Tyler Owens may be the first time a movie has given the “X with a heart of gold” character to the job of a Youtuber. And maybe a whirlwind romance is just what Kate needs.

Twisters may not pack the practical effect punch of its predecessor, its CGI spectacle being solid but unspectacular. But what makes it that perfect popcorn viewing is the way that it ties a dumb action movie into a Lifetime romcom, what could be more crowd pleasing? Kate is stuck in a rut in the big city, before going back to her hometown and finding her sense of fun bicker-flirting with a Cowboy. It just needs a holiday to complete the package, so hopefully Daisy and Glen are willing to come back for A Very Twister Christmas this December. Their easy chemistry, soundtracked by a chicken-fried country music soundtrack, makes for a delightful hangout movie that occasionally breaks out into life-threatening peril.

Which isn’t to say the set pieces are totally lacking. Minari director Lee Isaac Chung may not be experienced with action, but he captures gloomy landscapes and the path of destruction with an impressive weight. Indie directors are often lost as a cog once they get snapped up for the bigger budget stuff, but he has the canny sense to know that big screen spectacle can be tied to the characters too. Edgar-Jones’ massive tear-glazed eyes, Powell’s storm-soaked white shirts, and a concerted effort to show the human cost of the destruction ensure the stakes are relatively grounded.

It could all go further – just as his Top Gun: Maverick avoided mentioning who exactly the baddies were, Joe Kasinski’s script stops just short at every opportunity to get into the climate of it all, and the heat between the leads doesn’t quite explode in the most satisfying fashion. But the sense of fun is infectious, and Twisters comes by that attitude honestly. It isn’t inviting you to the Suck Zone for seeing a movie when you were twelve. Here for a good time, not a long time, Twisters is surrounded by a refreshing irreverence, stars on the rise and an audience ready for its exact kind of nonsense, and it reaps that whirlwind.

3.5 out of 5 stars (3.5 / 5)
Where to watch Twister

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