Twisters (United States, 2024)

From the outside looking in, I was dubious about how the filmmakers behind Twisters were going to handle a sequel-not-sequel to the 1996 blockbuster, Twister. With Bill Paxton dead and Helen Hunt not participating, there seemed to be no real path forward unless it involved either (a) something highly creative and original, or (b) a lot of pointless regurgitation with a new cast. Sadly, despite having recruited the director of Minari, Lee Isaac Chung, to helm the project, the producers opted for option (b) and movie-goers are all the poorer for it. In theaters, Twisters is at best a borderline sensory experience. At home, it will be a snooze-fest with cardboard characters and unimpressive action scenes.

Are comparisons to Twister unfair? Not when the movie directly connects itself to its predecessor (for marketing purposes). And, despite trying desperately to distance itself from its forebear outside of a few random Easter Eggs (none of the original characters appear or are even referenced, directly or indirectly), Twisters feels like an ugly stepchild – an offspring that refuses to acknowledge its parents while repeating things many of the things they did. The most unfortunate aspect of Twisters is that it doubles down on many of the earlier film’s weaknesses while diminishing its strengths.

Let’s start with the tornadoes, since they’re the big draw. In 1996, Jan de Bont collaborated with the wizards at ILM to combine then-cutting-edge CGI with practical effects (airplane turbines created some of the winds) to excellent effect. De Bont paid particular attention to the sound effects. At the time, the Twister twisters were awe-inspiring. Even today, they stand up pretty well. For the sequel, Chung has dug deep into the CGI toolbox and come up with a group of tornadoes that are visually superior yet strangely lacking. The menace, dread, and anticipation are missing. The tornadoes in the 1996 movie had presence. The tornadoes in Twisters are simply there.

Now let’s move to the characters. In Twister, they were a bunch of stereotypes brought to life by likeable, accomplished actors giving workmanlike performances. There was real chemistry between Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt and the supporting cast give life to secondary figures with limited screen time. There was a sense of camaraderie. Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Dusty was a standout. In Twisters, even the two leads – Daisy Edgar-Jones’ Kate Carter and Glenn Powell’s Tyler Owens – struggle to find personalities they can enliven. Everyone else is faceless and forgettable. (And explain why Maura Tierney couldn’t have been swapped out for Helen Hunt?) Despite frequent close-ups designed to emphasize the characters’ humanity, Twisters forgets to build the interpersonal relationships and it doesn’t help that the movie backs away from allowing the level of playful sizzle evident in Twister (or the Keanu Reeves/Sandra Bullock interplay in Speed, another de Bont movie) to manifest itself here.

Finally there’s the story. Twister, with its overreliance on disaster movie tropes, never viewed the plot as anything more than a way to put the characters in harm’s way. But it explored an idiosyncratic lifestyle while providing a window into the awesome destructive power of tornadoes. Here, the semi-realism of Twister gives way to science fiction silliness. The goal of Twister was to study tornadoes. The goal of Twisters is to destroy/dissipate them. And, of course, there has to be a human bad guy. In the first film, that role was filled by Cary Elwes, whose greedy stormchaser was missing only a Snidely Whiplash mustache to twirl. In this one, it initially looks like it might be Tyler until it turns out to be someone with barely any screen time.

The central character in Twisters, as was the case in Twister, is a woman. In this case, it’s Kate, an EF-5 survivor who has given up storm chasing to work in meteorology. When an old colleague, Javi (Anthony Ramos), comes calling, asking for her help, she reluctantly agrees to give him one week in the field. (“I’m not back!” she declares, echoing Bill from 28 years earlier.) Javi’s team, a group of professionals, finds themselves overshadowed by media darling and self-described “tornado wrangler” Tyler, who has a YouTube channel with 1,000,000 followers and a slogan: “It you feel it, chase it!” When Kate and Tyler first meet, they trade barbs, but he becomes fascinated by her and ultimately convinces her to re-examine an invention that obsessed her five years ago: a means by which tornadoes can be defeated.

Sequels often feel redundant but that’s more the case with Twisters than many. Taken on its own merits, it’s not terrible and it avoids the overt campiness that overtakes most tornado-based disaster films. (The screenwriters, for example, avoid what must have been an overwhelming temptation to create a fictional “EF-6” category.) But, by placing itself in the shadow of Twister and relying so much on story beats of the original, it feels like the most unnecessary of films. The opening sequence/prologue is gripping but that’s the only aspect of Twisters that works on its intended level. I was not blown away.

Twisters (United States, 2024)