Twisters – Dir: Lee Isaac Chung (13th Floor Film Review)

Twisters: A Heart-Stopping Blockbuster That Will Blow You Away.

Starring: Glen Powell, Daisy Edgar-Jones and Anthony Ramos

Twenty-eight years on from the release of Twister, Hollywood has decided to reboot this classic and valuable piece of intellectual property with Twisters. The film is a standalone sequel, a cash grab that defies expectations of what audiences have come to expect from the endless stream of Hollywood blockbuster reboots. Directed by Lee Isaac Chung, who in Munyurangabo and the Oscar-winning Minari, has always been apt at capturing the interplay between man and nature. But Twisters is a different beast. The film is a whirlwind of spectacular set pieces, incessant country music needle-drops, hazy attempts at explaining the science behind tornadoes, and dazzling VFX.

Kate (Daisy Edgar-Jones), a PhD student and naïve tornado savant who, through ‘science’ and climate-controlling polymers, has dreamt up a way to tame the epic all-destroying power of tornadoes. The science of the film may be a bit murky, but the stakes of Twisters are crystal clear: it’s life or death. In a harrowing white-knuckle first fifteen minutes, Kate, desperate to prove the validity of her idea, pushes it too far and gets her boyfriend and classmates killed. You can almost feel the wind rustling through your hair as the tornado, without regard for human life or physical property, annihilates everything in its path.

Cut to five years later, and Kate is working for the met-service in New York City. That is until a survivor from that fateful day, Javi (Anthony Ramos), convinces her to return to the field with the promise of saving lives with a newfangled gadget. A lot has changed since Kate last chased tornadoes. There’s a bourgeoning storm-chasing tourism industry for thrill-seekers wanting to get close to the action, and Tyler Owens (Glen Powell), a yee-hawing cowboy-hat-wearing celebrity Youtuber, who sells T-shirts with his face on them. Powell is as charming as ever, stealing the spotlight from Jones. Her character is underdeveloped, as is the ensemble of actors, David Corenswet, Katy M. O’Brian, Sasha Lane, Tunde Adebimpe, and Brandon Perea, who make up Powell’s rag-tag team of adrenaline junkie Youtubers.

Jones, despite her breakout performance in Normal People, is yet to cement her place as a star. Paul Mescal has become the Gen-Z ‘it’ actor, and in Twisters, for no fault of her own, she often is sidelined by Powell’s charming luminance and shit-eating grin. Opposites attract, and despite their different storm-chasing methods, the two strike up an unlikely romance. They flirt by talking about anything but themselves: pressure systems, baroclinic flows, and tornadogenesis.

Twisters is not an overly complex character-driven film, but it was never going to be. There are a few interesting threads, like the scars of Kate’s grief, how the rich can profit off devastation, and man’s arrogant attempt to tame nature. Interestingly, despite being set in a world where the frequency and intensity of tornadoes are increasing, the film avoids using the word “climate change.”

Ultimately, Twisters is about the spectacle of a tornado and the emotions it elicits—fear and awe. A tornado rampages through a small town, brutally guzzling up people. This nerve-shredding scene culminates inside a cinema where people are taking shelter. Frankenstein flickers on the screen as the building is torn to pieces. Chung never lets himself be swept up in the spectacle as the adrenaline-pumping visual flourishes shake and scream with eye-popping fury. He grounds Twisters in its fluttering weeds— the humanity of an assembly of souls in conversation with a beast far more frightening than they ever thought possible. Who knew the $320 million standalone to a 90’s classic could be this good? Looks can be deceiving.

Thomas Giblin

Twisters is in cinemas now. Click here for showtimes and tickets