A movie about wild weather that never mentions climate change? Twisters, the stand-alone sequel to Twister (1996), directed by Lee Isaac Chung, broke box office records for a disaster movie this month. According to a July 28 New York Times story, the film reflects a new Hollywood trend of catering to conservative red-state audiences — in this case, by omitting from the screenplay any mention of why natural disasters such as tornadoes have increased in frequency. (Mark L. Smith’s script does acknowledge that all kinds of storms have become more severe, and a farmer character bemoans her embattled livelihood.)
Brooks Barnes of the Times writes that Twisters plays to moviegoers’ desires “to be entertained, no homework attached.” So let’s take the movie on its own terms. How entertaining is Twisters?
The deal
Oklahoma native Kate (Daisy Edgar-Jones) has a sixth sense for which storm systems will develop into destructive tornadoes. And she has a dream: to deflate the funnel clouds by shooting them with beads of absorbent sodium polyacrylate. (This is movie science; don’t try it at home.) Instead, an EF5 tornado flattens her research project, killing all of Kate’s gang of plucky meteorology students except for her and her friend Javi (Anthony Ramos).
Five years later, an older and sadder Kate is doing a desk job in New York for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration when Javi comes back into her life. He’s been testing military radar as a promising new way to monitor tornadoes and needs Kate’s storm-whispering skills for an expedition to Oklahoma’s Tornado Alley.
Back in the path of disaster, Kate reckons with panic attacks and rival storm chasers. Particularly persistent is Tyler Owens (Glen Powell), a YouTube “tornado wrangler” who seems less interested in stopping storms than in putting on a show. But could he and Kate have more in common than she realizes?
Will you like it?
Of course they do, because Twisters is structured like a rom-com with tornadoes, Pride and Prejudice torn by gale winds. From their first meeting, Kate and Tyler are all about the cute banter, albeit in a hostile register. When she spots the influencer cowboy assisting the residents of a wrecked town — finding a lost dog, even — her fate is sealed. And that’s even before he takes her to a rodeo.
If you’re like me and recently revisited the original Twister on Max, you know it’s a hokey epic with spectacular effects (for its time) and predictable Hollywood plotting. Today, we love that movie less for its disaster money shots than for its ensemble cast — a rare bonanza of character actors, some of whom would go on to stardom in the new century. The presence of late, lamented Bill Paxton and Philip Seymour Hoffman tugs at the heartstrings in a way that only the merciless passage of time can accomplish.
As corny as the original, Twisters features callbacks to some of its best-remembered moments: the “sister” tornadoes, the EF5, the devastation of a movie theater playing a horror flick. Director Chung seems like a good choice to inject a blockbuster with heart and humor, having made the Oscar-nominated Minari, an indie drama about an immigrant family farming in the heartland.
But the ragtag ensemble of storm chasers in Twisters isn’t as fleshed out or as fun to watch as that of the original. There are likable supporting players here, such as Sasha Lane (American Honey) as a member of Tyler’s crew. They don’t have much to do, though, because the focus is firmly on Kate’s personal journey out of trauma and her evolving relationship with Tyler.
Powell and Edgar-Jones are charming when they spout meteorology jargon at each other — so charming that it’s easy not to notice his character doesn’t add up. Tyler seems to represent the audience the movie is trying to reach — a straight-shooting entrepreneur, disdainful of government and city folk but not opposed to innovation for a good cause. The film pulls an awkward bait and switch, though: It introduces him as a crass exploiter of destruction — parallel to Cary Elwes’ villain in Twister — only to inform us a bit later that actually he only posts stunts on YouTube so he can use the profits to help people. Jane Austen this isn’t, and even an actor as likable as Powell can’t pull off that abrupt transformation.
It’s disappointing to see Hollywood reject scientific consensus as “homework,” especially since Twisters is closer to real-world concerns than most of the CGI-driven blockbusters these days. At the same time, one has to wonder whether anyone’s mind would have been changed by a nod to anthropogenic climate crisis in a movie that depicts a storm chaser literally screwing his vehicle into the earth so he can shoot fireworks into a tornado’s funnel. If silly summer fun is all you come for, you’ll leave satisfied.
If you like this, try…
Twister (1996; Max, YouTube Primetime, rentable): Sure, the effects are dated, but where else can you see Oscar winner Hoffman and the director of Tár (Todd Field) chasing tornadoes together?
The End We Start From (2023; rentable): Disaster movies have been explicitly addressing climate crisis since Roland Emmerich’s hyperbolic The Day After Tomorrow (2004; Disney+, Hulu, Philo, rentable). For a more recent and realistic depiction of the human toll of catastrophic storms, watch this British survival drama starring Jodie Comer and Benedict Cumberbatch.
Supercell (2023; Disney+, Hulu, rentable): If tornadoes are your passion, check out this tale of a storm chaser’s teenage son who runs away to follow in his dad’s footsteps. Or the found-footage disaster flick Into the Storm (2014; rentable).
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This article appears in Jul 31 – Aug 6, 2024.
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