It’s funny to me that the term “blockbuster” has become such an all-encompassing term for, essentially, a movie made to make a lot of money. They serve generally as crowd-pleasers, a film that is seen less under the microscope of “craft” and more under the purview of cookie-cutter entertainment. But blockbusters are evolving – I mean, we are coming off a year in which a 3-hour dramatic biopic about a scientist made nearly a billion dollars. Twisters (2024), though, says “Screw that, we’re going to make a movie ripped out of the 90s that’s gonna rock your socks off – and you’re gonna freaking like it.”
Director Lee Isaac Chung’s sequel to the 1996 classic Twister is both predictable and satisfying, while also surprisingly curious. It’s a disaster blockbuster built to entertain, yet it has a strong head on its shoulders. The film is the epitome of “blockbuster” filmmaking: a damn good time with charisma, some truly harrowing set pieces, and a drop-dead movie star at its core.
The film starts with a truly distressing sequence that is about as predictable as you can imagine. Daisy Edgar-Jones plays Kate Carter, a meteorologist who plans to “tame” a tornado through some science mumbo-jumbo that sounds maybe somewhat plausible. Kate and her team — composed of promising, talented young actors playing characters whose names I forget since they are quite literally blown off the screen within minutes — go through a nightmare of a tornado.
The sequence is outfitted with blistering winds, violent deaths, and truly saddening emotional beats. It’s honestly quite terrifying, especially seeing as there are tangible effects of the destruction that make the tornado more scary than it is awesome. It sets the stage well, exhibiting why a movie like this works: it knows where its bread is buttered.
Most people go to these so-called “blockbusters” rarely for the predictable romance or the well-trodden story beats. Rather, it’s for the sheer spectacle of it. We want to see big tornadoes, and we want to feel these tornadoes as if we were in Oklahoma ourselves. That’s easier said than done, though; it requires intriguing characters, a functional script, and, most of all, some kickass direction. It’s surprising that Chung chose such a bombastic film following his last entry — the subtle, lovely family drama Minari (2022)— yet it’s apparent that he has the goods.
Each tornado sequence feels violent and immersive, whipping its audience members into its swirling vortex. Cars are flung around willy-nilly, people are picked up into the sky like napkins in the wind, and everything not attached to the ground becomes fuel for Mother Earth. But perhaps Chung’s greatest feat here is that he makes the other aspects of his film — aside from its sheer spectacle — so interesting. The original film, which essentially only cares about making tornadoes look cool on a movie screen, lacks this further feeling of intrigue.
Twister is similar to this sequel in its predictability, a thoroughly pleasing watch that doesn’t really stand for all that much and doesn’t really care to. It’s a fine movie. Twisters, though, ramps up its predecessor’s story beats in every way. Where Twister opts for goofiness, Twisters chooses tension. I am not going to say that every dramatic beat hits home, but it does just enough to get an audience member to at least care about what’s happening on screen.
The film picks up five years after the initial tragedy of Kate’s experiment gone awry, and she now lives in New York City working as a suited-up meteorologist. Javi (Anthony Ramos), an old friend and the only other survivor of the film’s opening convinces Kate to come back into the fray to help him with his new tech startup that uses scanners to create 3-D models of tornadoes. Much like Kate, Javi seems to care about making a difference; he wants to use his models to create better tornado alarm systems so people can find shelter faster.
Whereas Twister really just wants to show tornadoes on a screen for a couple of hours, the sequel is far more interested in the emotional toll of these catastrophes. After all, these are horrible events that are only being worsened by our world’s horrific decline. The film never mentions climate change directly, but it’s easy to read between the lines. There’s an emotion to the tragedies that is barely visible in the original, making the tornadoes themselves indicators of trauma and fear. They’re fun for us to watch on a screen, sure. But they’re also horrifying disasters that have uprooted thousands of people.
Chung seems aware of this tension between awe-inducing spectacle and real-life tragedy; there’s a reason Glen Powell’s character is framed as a YouTube star who has created a celebrity of himself by driving into twisters and shooting fireworks. I’ll admit, that sounds pretty sick! It’s easy to find him awesome, too, since Powell’s Tyler Owens embodies a sort of all-American coolness that captivates the screen anytime he gets it. His smile alone has more charisma than the rest of the cast combined. It’s been the summer of Glen Powell, but Twisters proves that the man is a capital “M” Movie Star. He oozes aura.
But more intriguing than Powell’s general hot-ness is how he embodies a sort of 2024 version of the ultra-American male. He’s handsome, he’s a badass who wrangles tornadoes, he is revered as an icon and leader among men, and he drinks Budweiser on the hood of his big ole pickup truck. Tyler, though, is also tender-hearted, an innerly sensitive man who wants to help people; we learn later that the profits of his merchandise sales go towards feeding and caring for victims of tornadoes. He’s an easy character to root for, even if this choice leaves the character sanitized. But Tyler — who becomes your run-of-the-mill white knight who must help our female protagonist fix her mistakes — feels less of a fully fleshed-out character and more of a canvas for Glen Powell to just be Glen Powell. And Powell carries that load well; he is the star of this movie, even if Edgar-Jones might be the first billing.
That’s not to say Edgar-Jones fails in her performance, though; that’s not the case. While I’m unconvinced Edgar-Jones has the command of the camera to compete with a star of Powell’s gravity, I found her emotional breadth to be a welcoming addition to an otherwise manly-man movie. She gives the movie a heart, and, even if she doesn’t have the same level of presence as her co-star, she makes the movie work. Even then, though, it’s a thinly veiled character that aches for more exploration. Every character, honestly, could use some more definition; most feel as if they barely exist outside of the film’s margins.
Powell and Edgar-Jones’s rom-com-esque relationship, though, helps the film find its depth as a — albeit pretty straightforward — portrait of trauma. They showcase convincing enough chemistry, but it is their relationship to the twisters that makes them click as characters. Both Kate and Tyler see the tornadoes as symbols of fear. And they both seek to tame it in their own ways. It’s not a groundbreaking formula for giving a little meaning to your movie, but it’s an idea that serves the film well — and is the reason why I don’t mind that these two objectively gorgeous movie stars never kiss. Their relationship, and the film as a whole, is barely about them as people; it’s about overcoming fear. It’s about the chase.
I couldn’t help but feel, too, that Chung takes aim at a few loftier ideas. Like how people have commodified and made entertainment of nature. Or how capitalistic endeavors take advantage of the world and the most fragile of people. Or how the degradation of our world by our own irresponsibility is turned into a spectacle of entertainment. And how this movie — and its predecessor — is inherently tied to that exact kind of tragedy-turned-spectacle.
I don’t believe Twisters is trying to interrogate the American man or make a profound, world-shifting statement on climate change. But, even if that’s not the case, there is no doubt that the film is a satisfying if predictable blockbuster-sized adventure. It’s refreshing. These movies beg to be seen in a theater, where the screen swallows you whole into a whirlwind of adrenaline and awe. It’s exactly what you want from a movie about tornado chasing — and a little bit more.
Review Courtesy of Carson Burton
Feature Image Credit to Universal Pictures via The Detroit News
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