“Twisters” (2024) picks up right where “Twister” (1996) left off: a team of meteorologists, Dorothy the tornado-monitoring system, and a high-flying F-5 tornado. Though “Twister” fans’ hearts will break when they learn the tornadoes are now measured on an EF scale rather than the beloved F scale.
But instead of just trying to measure tornadoes, we are now trying to defeat them. “Twisters” progresses beyond the 1996 film in every facet: The music is better, the tornadoes are cooler, the stakes are higher; hell, even the cast is hotter. And the best part of it all? I didn’t even need to see the tornadoes for “Twisters” to keep my attention.
“Twisters” made its Wrangell premiere last weekend at the Nolan Center.
From the start, director Lee Isaac Chung tells us exactly what this movie is going to be: a tribute not to tornadoes or even to the 1996 original, but to his personal cinematic hero: Steven Spielberg.
The barrels holding the powder that can theoretically cause a tornado to collapse are identical to the yellow barrels used in “Jaws” (1975). In a scene where Glen Powell’s character (Tyler) shelters from the storm by lying face down inside an empty swimming pool, we are reminded of Sean Connery’s character in “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” urging Indy that only the penitent man shall pass. So, when Powell describes tornadoes as “part science, part religion,” it makes a little more sense.
Like so many of Spielberg’s films, Chung disguises Twisters as a spectacle of escapism rooted in family and acceptance.
At the start of “Twisters,” we aren’t even sure who the film’s main villain is. If Chung wanted us to hate Powell from the start, that was never going to happen. Even if he was cocky and a tad rude, the music blasting from Powell’s truck every time he entered a scene was way too much fun to look down upon. You’re not going to get me to hate a character if all he does is listen to Benson Boone, Tyler Childers and Dylan Gossett while spending his time chasing tornadoes. If anything, Chung actually gives us a hint that we’re supposed to like the Arkansas-based Tyler, as the director, himself grew up in rural Arkansas.
An hour into the movie, Chung announces his villain. And it’s not the rival storm chasers as it was in the original, it’s the storms themselves.
While the 1996 film made a spectacle of tornadoes, Chung’s sequel is harrowingly honest with the damage they cause. Like how Spielberg shoots the shark in “Jaws,” Chung exposes us to the damage far more than he exposes us to the entity. In the film’s two-hour runtime, there are six tornadoes (seven if you count the “twins”). For every shot of the tornadoes, there are at least a dozen shots of Powell and Edgar-Jones reacting to them. And the only reason Chung can pull this off is because of the star power of Powell and the performance of Edgar-Jones.
Chung’s film may be an introduction to Daisy Edgar-Jones for many, but she gives the film’s strongest performance and holds the screen opposite Powell perfectly. As for Powell, he has now starred in two of the last three big summer movies — “Top Gun: Maverick” (2022) and “Twisters” — all while interspersing them with commercial successes like “Anyone But You” (2023) and “Hit Man” (2024).
Powell’s presence is bigger than the tornadoes themselves, but in Chung’s first film since “Minari” (2020) — a film that follows a Korean American family who move to rural Arkansas — the director made another movie about family. Families make the biggest events out of the smallest wins: You got an A on your report card, well let's go get ice cream. Apparently, storm chasers do the same thing. When Kate and her team accomplish something as small as fixing their trailer, the team hoots and hollers and high fives, unaffected by the tornado veering right toward them. Even in the film’s tonally lowest point, Kate goes nowhere else but her mother’s house.
For Chung, these little moments of joy and support come not just from the family we are given but from the family we construct. No tornado can swirl up anything quite that strong. Not even an (E)F-5.
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