Twisters is the new film from director Lee Isaac Chung and stars Daisy Edgar Jones, Glen Powell, and Anthony Ramos. Twisters is the 2024 sequel to the 1996 classic Twister. It has been a while since a big budget, star studded, natural disaster film has come across our paths — finally, we are back!
Twisters follows Kate — a former tornado chaser, who is drawn back into the dangerous world by her former partner, Javi, to analyze tornado patterns. While in Tornado Alley, Kate meets Tyler Owens — a charismatic internet celebrity known as ‘The Tornado Wrangler’ by his fans. The two groups clash on their missions, attempting to survive tornadoes, and help everyone around them.
There will most likely be spoilers ahead so proceed with caution if you do not want anything spoiled for you. Fasten your harnesses, head to your nearest basement, and admire your Glen Powell one last time. Today we are talking about Twisters!
Storm before the Storm: Trailers
Going into this I had some expectations to be, at the very least, entertained. Fortunately this movie was entertaining and that was definitely fulfilled. The trailers for this movie looked kind of sick. Each time I went to the theaters and heard Brandon Perea yell “We’ve got twins!” I was locked in and hyped. This looked like a good time at the theaters, with big thanks going towards the trailers.
They were not perfect encapsulations of what the movie actually turned out to be, but when each letter of “Twisters” popped up on screen with some big percussion I was ready. Boy, oh boy, I was so ready. Toss in a currently uber popular Glen Powell in a role he seems pretty perfect for and we are so good to go. I was so excited going into Twisters!
The Cowboy: Glen Powell
As a small spoiler for this review, I want to note that I think this movie was good overall. While I would not say this movie is anywhere close to flawless, it was definitely still fun. All of that fun came from Glen Powell. I became a fan of Glen recently after catching his performances in Hit Man and Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over. The classics. Given his Texas roots, nearly everything Tyler Owens did felt like authenticity from Glen.
Yes, I do have a portion of this review just to talk about Glen Powell. No, I do not think he actually gave a super memorable performance. Yes, he did save this movie more often than not. Twister starred Bill Paxton, Helen Hunt, and Phillip Seymour Hoffman. That is a lot of star power with a lot of charisma. Of everyone in the Twisters cast, Glen was the only one I felt was closest to their energy. Conveniently this leads me into a complaint I have with the movie.
Action News Team: The Cast
I am not sure whether to chalk the averageness of each performance up to the performances or the writing. While no one was particularly bad, I do not see myself looking back in a few years saying, “Yeah, man. Daisy Edgar Jones was so good in Twisters.” to anyone.
Daisy Edgar Jones was fine in Twisters. Anthony Ramos was definitely in the movie Twisters. Brandon Perea said the line from the trailers! He said, “We’ve got twins!” Yeah, man. Classic. Glen Powell was energetic, that is for sure. Wait! Is that actor and comedian Paul Scheer making a brief cameo as the parking authority? Oh, man it is! Dude, I love that guy!
One of my great issues with this movie is the lack of anyone who really sticks out. To a degree, I think it is disappointing to see these talents not really do much here. Jones was so great in Fresh. I liked Ramos in Hamilton. I liked Perea in Nope. Powell was good in Hit Man.
Look, I get that this is a movie about chasing hurricanes, but there could be a bit more personality than the singular electrifying lead. I could blame the performances, but to be honest I think it also comes down to the story.
Tale of the Twisters: Plot
One of my least favorite story ideas is one where there is a focus on technology in a situation where there are greater things at play. 9/10 times it is more of a hindrance than a plot device and that is really what it is here. The first mistake was making Kate’s goal to dissipate tornados. Nah. Don’t do that.
Part of the fun of natural disaster movies is the survival element. I do not like the idea of humans being better than giant natural occurrences. I’m not qualified to go into any facet of science, but as a fiction consumer, I think it’s bad.
Imagine if The Day After Tomorrow ended with nanobots that had heat lasers to melt everything. What if The Perfect Storm also featured a boat that had buckets of some chemical mixture to break up the waves or the ocean? See how dumb that sounds? The best part of these films is all in how everyone adapts and survives the situations that are unconquerable.
So, you have a group of scientists trying to break up tornadoes with technology. Okay, I don’t love it, but whatever. What else? The scientists are actually trying to study tornado patterns to help out a major real estate agent that just wants to profit off of the people. Umm, I really don’t like that.
The Thrill of it All: Good
I think I have done enough complaining. Overall, I did like this movie. Twisters is for sure a summer blockbuster flick that will for sure entertain you. All previous issues I mentioned still stand, but from the perspective of a movie just about giving you something big and fun, this is it. Twisters might not have the greatest pacing, but every scene with a tornado is so much fun.
The opening bit was shocking and set a good tone for the rest to come. Like I mentioned, Glen Powell’s Tornado Wrangler gimmick is fun. That’s the stuff I needed in my veins the whole time. A rowdy, but smart character to inject some “hell yeah” into the movie is exactly what Dr. Nolen ordered. One thing I really dug in Twisters was how silly they got with the tornadoes. Although nothing was “silly,” seeing other kinds of tornadoes was nice.
The aforementioned “twins” were cool and I liked that scene. I am a fan of how there was a steady stream of tornadoes and everything kept moving forward. On top of the story constantly moving, the twisters were continually coming and the destruction never stopped. That’s the stuff I wanted in this movie and was happy to have it.
Good Continued
That constant is the main reason I enjoyed the ending of the film. They made a point to highlight how the twisters are going to continue and stay at a high level so with that I worried how things would end. They could simply just end, but where’s the fun in that? I know there was some talk about a kiss being needed at the end, but truthfully, I do not care about that. What I really wanted was for the movie to not actually end.
More often than not, it bothers me when a movie just decides to call a certain point the end of the entire story and then tease another movie. I was quite happy the movie ends with the alert of another oncoming tornado. Keep it going. Not only is this a good pause on this story, but it’s also a solid way to tease a sequel. I have yet to decide whether I actually want a sequel, but my answer is most likely a ‘no’ anyway.
Twisters by Lee Isaac Chung
Twisters was fun! Contrary to all of the complaining I did previously, I enjoyed this a bunch. Would I put it on the same level as the original? Absolutely not. However, taking Twister out of the picture, I think this worked well on its own. There is a bunch of good in here despite all of its flaws and my personal nitpicks.
If you get a chance to see Twisters in the theaters, I think you should check it out. This is for sure a movie with enough big things to make it worth it. I feel like this is a 7/10 and that will do it for me in this review of Twisters!
Did you see the film? What did you think of it? Let me know and stick around here at Respect My Region for more movie reviews!
