OK, I’m gonna say this here because I’m pretty sure it’s just me, but every time I see actor Glen Powell in a trailer, he reminds me of Alan Ruck circa Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. He obviously is a different person, but for some reason I have to remind myself that Powell is not Ruck, that Ruck is far older than Powell, and I don’t think the two are even related or anything. It’s just kinda weird that I have to remind myself all the time. I mean, I saw Ruck in Succession as the only one of Logan Roy’s children who found something like happiness by not going into the family business. Powell, meanwhile, is here as the male lead for Twisters.
Did we need Twisters? Or is this another case of a latter day sequel I end up liking much more than the original because I sure didn’t much like Twister.
Student and stormchaser Kate (Daisy Edgar-Jones) has a plan to actually defuse tornadoes in a way that could stop the windstorms quickly and to perhaps save lives. Tragedy strikes, however, when most of her team are killed in the field when her theories prove inadequate, including her boyfriend Jeb (Daryl McCormack). Five years later, a still grieving Kate is working for the National Weather Service out of New York City when the only other survivor of day, Javi (Anthony Ramos), shows up looking for her help. Javi got his hands on some advanced radars that can perhaps predict the path and strength of tornadoes and act as a great early-warning system. He just needs Kate to help out since no one could spot and predict a tornado and the path it would take better than she could.
But then an unexpected obstacle comes along in the form of “Tornado Wrangler” Tyler Owens (Powell), the leader of a more slapdash team with a popular YouTube channel, a line of merchandise, and what seems to be just stormchasing for the thrill of it. There’s no reason for Tyler’s and Javi’s respective teams to be any sorts of rivals as both groups want different things, but there is something going on there, and Kate initially isn’t too thrilled by Tyler and his ways. However, as she gets her nerve back, there’s still the fact that she might have the means to actually stop a tornado, and as there seems to be a whole lot of them setting down in this area of Oklahoma more than usual, that would be something people would need. Can Kate find what she needs and what role will Tyler play in it?
Honestly, I went into this movie not expecting much. I wasn’t much of a fan of the original movie, the trailer looked pretty cliched, and honestly, if it wasn’t the only really big release this weekend, I probably would have skipped it entirely. But then something unexpected happened: I started to get into this movie. To be clear, it is still pretty cliched, but the opening scene, showing Kate, Javi, and their friends try to defuse a tornado on their own interacting in a way that made me rather like these characters despite the fact I guessed that most of them were doomed. I expect Kate to gradually learn Tyler’s group isn’t as bad as she first thought and that Javi’s group was maybe not so benevolent despite the fact Javi himself really does want to help people. The characters just come across as deeper than I would have expected for a movie like this, and the special effects are pretty top notch. Heck, I even appreciated how the movie handled the expected romantic tensions between Kate and Tyler.
The bottom line is Twisters is, like Blade Runner 2049 and Top Gun: Maverick a long-delayed sequel that I ended up liking far more than I thought I would. To be honest, the original Twister always struck me as a cliched workplace romance grafted onto a movie about tornado chasers where the cutting edge special effects were more of the draw than anything else. Twisters is trying to for something more, showing a more humane side to the people involved. Yes, it’s still cliched. Yes, it’s not great cinema. But I was honestly enjoying myself with this one, and I really wasn’t expecting to.
Grade: B-
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