Summary
It’s worth chasing this thrilling standalone sequel as it delivers a character-driven tale of a once-in-a-generation tornado season in Oklahoma.
The only thing more surprising than a standalone sequel to Jan de Bont’s 1996 Twister is its director. Lee Isaac Chung, fresh off his sweeping, character-driven Minari, takes the helm. Set again in Oklahoma, this throwback disaster flick combines survival against the odds with a sense of comforting familiarity, all painted on a much bigger canvas.
Idealistic storm chaser Kate Cooper (Daisy Edgar-Jones) and her technically minded friend Javi (Anthony Ramos) lose their friends to a tornado while pursuing a storm-killer solution. Years later, the now-successful Javi lures Kate back into storm chasing with the promise of data to prevent future tragedies. Battling her PTSD and reckless social media star Tyler Owens (Glen Powell), they find themselves in a once-in-a-generation storm season.
Mark L. Smith’s narrative relies on a lot of coincidence. Disaster must strike randomly and repeatedly in a compact space in order for the story to progress in any way. While the technology has moved on, and there is a recognition that there probably would be a YouTube channel for all of this, Smith and Chung also know not to mess with a tried and true formula. In fact, were it not for the modern trappings and effects, this could have happily been released in the heyday of big disaster movies — and there’s not a thing wrong with that.
It’s also still a character piece at the heart of the film, even if those figures are fairly lightly drawn. Kate is fine successor to Helen Hunt’s Jo in the original, not only following a similar path of tragedy to redemption but giving us a human hook to hang a hurricane on. The two male leads are less well rounded, although it’s eventual love interest Powell who has this arc from over-the-top redneck to studied saviour. That said, Ramos is often relegated to a supporting character, and American Honey‘s Sasha Lane is criminally underused.
Yet if you’re turning up for a film called TWISTERS, you are here for the titular tornadoes. The location settings are convincingly ripped apart by the literal sturm und drang of the devastating phenomenon. There’s a wonderful union of special effects and Dan Mindel’s cinematography. In the climactic moment, there’s a beautiful shot that literally rips the screen off a cinema, creating one of the more beautiful effects I’ve seen in a blockbuster.
Chung’s film is ultimately everything a ‘sequel’ should be. In fact, save for a few nominal nods to the nomenclature of the original, TWISTERS happily stands on its own as an event. If the storms are going to be this fun, we’ll happily keep chasing them.
2024 | USA | DIRECTOR: Lee Isaac Chung | WRITERS: Mark L. Smith | CAST: Daisy Edgar-Jones, Glen Powell, Anthony Ramos | DISTRIBUTOR: Universal Pictures (USA), Warner Bros. (Australia) | RUNNING TIME: 132 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 11 July 2024 (Australia), 19 July 2024 (USA)
