There have been plenty of indie filmmakers who have made the transition to blockbuster studio movies, but rarely has the shift been as drastic as that of Lee Isaac Chung. The filmmaker behind the sensitive autobiographical Minari, switches gears and delivers a gale-force wind of entertainment with Twisters, a semi-sequel to the 1996 disaster movie classic, Twister. There are more tornadoes to chase, more houses, animals (sadly, few cows), and loads of fireworks funneled up into the skies, and while the film doesn’t have the emotional, human complexity of Chung’s breakthrough drama, Twisters makes up for it with turbulent action and two storm-chasin’ leads.
Twisters feature a lot of combustible elements: human tragedy, guilt, Internet celebrity, unrequited love, thrill-seeking, and tons of property damage. The film begins with star Daisy Edgar-Jones as Kate, a brilliant and risk-taking tornado researcher in Oklahoma, a hotbed of storm activity. Along with her boyfriend (Daryl McCormack), best friend Javi (Anthony Ramos), and the rest of her circle (including Kiernan Shipka and Nik Dodani), Kate attempts a dangerous experiment to “tame tornadoes”, in hopes of securing grant money for further research. But things go terribly wrong, and the fatal consequences are something Kate and Javi are forced to live with.
Chung convinces us he’s the real deal with that powerful opening sequence, that captures the true unpredictability of Mother Nature better than any scene that follows. Five years later, and you can tell Kate is no longer the firecracker she used to be. She’s got a severe blonde haircut, and a boring job behind a desk as a meteorologist in New York. That is until Javi shows up leading his new company StormPar, backed by big corporate money and military tech. The research data could be a lifesaver for millions, but all Javi needs is Kate’s help back home in Oklahoma where they are experiencing a tornado boom. See, Kate is like the “tornado whisperer”. She can see things nobody else can, and Javi convinces her that he needs her instincts. Nevermind that her natural instincts have already proven to be faulty, it’s just one of those things that needs to be said to pump up a character’s Yoda-like cred, corny or not.
Twisters doesn’t really get going until the introduction of loudmouth “tornado wrangler” and YouTube celeb Tyler Owens, played by Glen Powell. Followed by his ragtag crew (Brandon Perea, Sasha Lane, Katy O’Brian, Tunde Adebimpe) and one dodgy British journalist (Harry Hadden-Paton), Tyler stirs up a hornets’ nest everywhere he goes, relying more on reckless abandon and bravado than fancy equipment and book learnin’. It isn’t long before the science nerds and the “hillbillies with a YouTube channel” start needling one another, and the screenplay by Mark L. Smith has them play out in stereotypical ways. Tyler’s team dives right into every windstorm, blasting off fireworks for their adoring fans. Meanwhile, Javi and Kate do what, at least on the surface, appear to be the right thing to help the most people.
Just as there’s nothing subtle about a hurricane tearing a path of destruction through a small town, Twisters telegraphs every turn with heavy-handed forcefulness. It turns out that Tyler is a storm chaser with a heart of gold (Awwwww), and StormPar isn’t the altruistic brand it seems to be. Furthermore, while the film lacks any overt romantic displays, one doesn’t need a weather map to chart the course of Kate and Tyler’s relationship. Before long, the two are joining forces, sharing their mutual love of meteorology, and battling the mother of all storms…in a movie theater no less! Who says movies can’t save lives?
Twisters is in just about every way possible a modern reimagining of Twister. The storm chaser culture, which I must admit to never understanding the allure, is given a social media upgrade to match our love of Internet celebrity. The characters are roughly the same, too. In philosophy and style it’s like having Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton in the eye of the storm again. Twisters isn’t as purely, viscerally fun as its predecessor, though, and definitely isn’t as funny. It needs to be sillier, to stop playing it so straight all of the time. There aren’t a lot of laughs to speak of, which is a shame when you’ve got the comedic talents of Glen Powell. He’s got the brash wildcard act down pat, though, and he gels nicely with a feisty performance by Edgar-Jones, who is quickly becoming the new Reese Witherspoon. She’s adorable and plucky now, but Edgar-Jones is due a major dramatic role that will change the way people perceive her.
Chances are that nobody is going into Twisters looking for multi-dimensional human drama or talk of climate change, which is good because they aren’t going to get it. But for those looking for a sudden squall of summer thrills, Twisters should be on the forecast.
Twisters opens in theaters on July 19th.
