Cinema for Brunch TWISTERS Review

Lee Isaac Chung delivers a serviceable summer blockbuster with “Twisters”, a fun, thrill ride that leaves more than a little room for depth.

Synopsis

Haunted by a devastating encounter with a tornado, Kate Cooper gets lured back to the open plains by her friend, Javi, to test a groundbreaking new tracking system. She soon crosses paths with Tyler Owens, a charming but reckless social-media superstar who thrives on posting his storm-chasing adventures. As storm season intensifies, Kate, Tyler and their competing teams find themselves in a fight for their lives as multiple systems converge over central Oklahoma.

Review
It’s not easy to create a blockbuster with some depth these days. Everything can’t follow the elusive, winning blockbuster formula but lo-and-behold, we have Tom Cruise’s protégé Glen Powell starring in one of the more adequate, entertaining blockbusters of the year. Lee Isaac Chung’s “Twisters”, the standalone sequel to the 1996 classic “Twister”, follows former storm chaser Kate Cooper (Daisy Edgar-Jones), five years removed from a tragedy that made her step away from the daredevil profession. In New York, she’s approached by old friend Javier “Javi” Rivera (Anthony Ramos) to return home to Oklahoma to help him test a new tornado scanning system. Reluctantly accepting the offer, Cooper crosses paths with the charismatic, over-the-top Southern goodboy Tyler Owens (Glen Powell) – a popular Youtuber that proclaims himself as a professional “Tornado Wrangler”. As ideologies, motivations and egos clash, the storm season intensifies, leaving the disparate teams to come together and fight for their lives.

The strongest parallel here to the original “Twister” is the great character dynamic between Kate and Tyler. Daisy Edgar-Jones leads a great performance with depth and relatability in the role of Kate – she’s a woman that is never too far away from her grief – nor her purpose – but still works through her fear and shows bravery in spades. On the flip side of the coin, Glen Powell delivers a fun, campy turn as Tyler – he’s a man that believes “you don’t face your fears, you ride them”. His grandstanding matches well with Kate’s optimism and it makes for a well-grounded ying-yang dynamic that echoes the chemistry of Bill Paxton (R.I.P.) and Helen Hunt in the original. The chemistry is also unbreakable, in service to the film itself – if the film just followed Kate’s story, it would be a somber, thrilling watch; if we just followed Tyler around, the film would just be campy fun. It’s the combination of both characters’ stories that gives this film the balance it needs. In regards to the supporting players, Anthony Ramos does a solid job as Javi, he doesn’t add much to the ensemble but he’s not an unwelcome face either. Same for Katy O’Brian and Sasha Lane as Dani and Lily on Tyler’s team, two actors whom we’ve seen great work from (“American Honey” for Sasha and “Love Lies Bleeding” for Katy) but aren’t given but a few lines here. David Corenswet is the perfect contrarian as Scott, Javi’s business partner that doesn’t make it any less obvious that he doesn’t favor Kate’s addition to the group. Brandon Perea’s enthusiastic turn as Boone, Tyler’s videographer and right-hand man, echoes the eccentricity of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s turn as Davey in the original. He’s easily the best of the supporting cast here, stealing any screen time that comes his way with zany fun.

Even though the film isn’t groundbreaking as an action blockbuster, director Lee Isaac Chung (returning after his Oscar-nominated film “Minari”) still finds time for depth and emotion. There’s a moment in Mark L. Smith’s script (story credit going to “Top Gun: Maverick” director Joseph Kosinski) where the story is given room to breathe and we catch up with Kate’s home life. Maura Tierney, always a welcome presence to anything she’s in, appears as Kate’s mother Cathy who shares great scenes with Daisy Edgar-Jones. Scenes like these are where Chung delivers on giving his characters real pathos, even showing us a monologue or two where Glen Powell’s Tyler lifts his cocky veil and bares his southern soul. Building upon this, Chung also understands the balance between the fun and the terrifying, the thrilling and the unsettling. There are great over-the-top sequences where gung-ho Tyler drives straight into a twister just to release fireworks to the sky and there are terrifying sequences where Kate and Tyler are running for their lives, while people are dragged away in the air screaming and communities in a tornado’s wake are left devastated. Everything here is earned – the comedy, the action, the chemistry, the pathos – all coming together to create a serviceable blockbuster for the summer.

Closing Thoughts
At the end of the day, “Twisters” is not a film that should exist or rather, needs to exist. If “Twister” never had a sequel, there wouldn’t be anyone desiring such a thing in the first place. But because a film like this works on its own as a crowd-pleasing blockbuster, there’s no reason to complain. In an era of unnecessary reboots, sequels and regurgitations of exhausted IP, “Twisters” feels a bit like an outlier that doesn’t cheat its audience in its existence. It’s a blockbuster handled with care and designed to do just what its original did – to thrill audiences with great chemistry and terrific disaster sequences.

Trailer