TWISTERS (2024)
Starring Daisy Edgar-Jones, Glen Powell, Anthony Ramos, Brandon Perea, Maura Tierney, Sasha Lane, Harry Hadden-Paton, Daryl McCormack, Kiernan Shipka, Nik Dodani, David Corenswet, Tunde Adebimpe, Katy O'Brian, Paul Scheer, James Paxton, David Born, Laura Poe, Austin Bullock, Stephen Oyoung, Alex Kingi and Chris Adrien.
Screenplay by Mark L. Smith.
Directed by Lee Isaac Chung.
Distributed by Universal Pictures. 122 minutes. Rated PG-13.
Twisters as a film brings up a certain conundrum to a reviewer. Supposedly this film is the continuation of the inexplicably popular 1996 disaster film Twister. However, this movie makes you wonder – can a film really be considered a sequel if the only recurring character from the original movie is a storm? (Apparently a piece of equipment is also reused from the first film.)
Okay, Twisters is not the first sequel (let’s call it a reboot, which is probably a more accurate term) to basically start from scratch, just keeping the basic premise of its original. In fact, it sadly happens way more often than you would hope. Still, how hard would it have been to get Helen Hunt (or maybe Jami Gertz or Cary Elwes) to come in for some brief cameos so that this film would have at least a little connection to the original?
Sadly, other than Hunt, the two biggest stars of the original Twister – Bill Paxton and Philip Seymour Hoffman, are both dead, but isn’t that just another reason not to return to this ravaged landscape? (Paxton’s son James, who was not in the original and looks almost nothing like his dad, does have a brief cameo as the motel guest from hell, so I guess that’s something.)
However, if Twisters does not have any of the characters from the original film, it has many of the same flaws – and in fairness, it does share some of the original film’s positive attributes as well.
Truth to be told – as if you couldn’t pick it up from the above – I was no great fan of the original Twister. And as the end credits of Twisters ran, I had the same basic reaction that I had to the original 28 years ago – if this is at all accurate, who the hell would want to live in Oklahoma? And what the hell is wrong with these people which makes them keep running around the state specifically trying to get trapped in the funnel of a tornado? Are they suicidal, or what?
Wouldn’t life be easier if they acted like most Oklahomans do and just hid it out in storm cellars – which are not shown once in this film? (The original Twister had at least one…) Also, despite what these supposed lifelong Oklahoma residents say here, very few places in Oklahoma have basements, so stop looking around for one already.
That said, like the original, the special effects are pretty spectacular. Probably even more so now, as Hollywood has nearly 30 years of SFX advances to play with. The film doesn’t always do all that much with the effects – most of the storms feel strangely alike – but at least they look rather spectacular in their similarity.
Just for the record, there are no flying cows in the new film, although one twister takes out a chicken coop. However, we only see one of the chickens, and he is not actually shown in the storm, but used as a post-tornado jump scare.
Like the original film, the story and characters are pretty much afterthoughts, a thin line of exposition to tangentially connect the tornado sequences together.
Daisy Edgar-Jones is a pretty and bright storm chaser who inadvertently ended up being responsible for a few of her friends’ deaths when her genius idea to dissipate tornados doesn’t quite work. (The science of Twisters makes little or no sense, but I suppose it isn’t really supposed to.) She has given up her life of excitement to work as a meteorologist in New York, when the one other survivor (Anthony Ramos) asks her to join him in a new highly financed study of tornadoes.
She reluctantly goes and is quickly drawn back into the life of storm chasing. She meets a gorgeous and slightly obnoxious guy who is the head of the other team (Glen Powell), and you know it’s just a matter of time before he starts sniffing around her, both for her scientific knowledge and her cuteness. And you know her old friend will eventually show that he has feelings for her too.
However, she just wants to fight tornadoes and help the victims and… yawn…
There are enough action sequences to keep the audience somewhat involved, although not quite enough to make you overlook the uninspired dialogue.
However, no matter how much they insist that Twisters is there for the people, it only exists for the spectacle of Mother Nature unleashed upon the prairies. No one going to a movie called Twisters really cares about meteorological science or “will-they-or-won’t-they” romantic subplots. The audience just endures those sequences to get to the money shots.
Jay S. Jacobs
Copyright ©2024 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: July 18, 2024.
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