Twisters

“When you said you used to chase tornadoes, I thought it was just a metaphor!” When thinking back on Jan de Bont’s 1996 disasterpiece Twister, its screenplay would hardly qualify for first place in audience’s affections. Still, when the aforementioned line is sobbed by Jami Gertz as the long-suffering fiancée of Bill Paxton’s weatherman gone rogue, unabashed melodrama walks hand-in-hand with knowing absurdity. Or, to be more accurate, it runs at desperate speed from exceedingly poor weather. Watching Twisters, a slickly made, wholly watchable follow-up nearly 30 years on from when Paxton and Helen Hunt first saw a cow flying past their car window, it’s tempting to wish for some of that same maximalist stupidity. It would be false to call the new film a model of restraint, but the windy shenanigans are competent where a degree of unembarrassed cringe may have served them better.

Directed with a steady, if slightly anonymous hand by Minari’s Lee Isaac Chung, the new film is refreshingly unbothered with tying itself too closely to its predecessor. In place of Paxton and Hunt’s dramedy of remarriage, we have tornado chaser Kate (Daisy Edgar-Jones), called back into action for a redemptive shot at healing the personal tragedy that drove her into desk jockey exile. Back in her Oklahoma stomping grounds, she and old chum Javier (Anthony Ramos) run afoul of a band of rivals led by a grinning cowboy (Glen Powell) whose main incentive is internet fame. As disdainfully declared by Paxton of his competition, “They’re in it for the money, not the science!”, or so it appears.

Powell is an actor whose old-school charms can feel so carefully groomed that it’s hard to believe a lone hair on his golden head will go out of place, no matter the level of jeopardy. His smirking swagger goes down easiest when the film around him acknowledges it to be the slightest bit annoying, as it proves for Javier when he starts to put the moves on Kate. Perhaps the resting pulse of Chung’s film would be raised if it were less sheepish with the melodrama of this burgeoning love triangle, or if Jones generated any real friction with either of her onscreen prospects. It’s easy for attention to drift to the supporting players, and Twisters understands the value of filling stock parts with engaging, well-chosen actors such as Tunde Adebimpe, Sasha Lane and Maura Tierney.

When a blockbuster sets its climax in a movie theatre, it can’t help but feel like a statement, perhaps a vote of confidence in the movies as a safe harbour where communities may shelter from stormy weather of all kinds. However, when the screen is wrenched through the roof, along with screaming civilians, one also senses an accidental portent of doom. Where you fall on this spectrum may depend on the spirits this sturdy yet uninspired summer flick leaves you in.

Thomas Messner

Twisters is released nationwide on 17^th July 2024.

Watch the trailer for Twisters here: