Movie
Name/Year: Twisters
(2024)
Genre:
Action, Adventure, Thriller
Length:
2h
2min
Rating:
PG-13
Director:
Lee Isaac Chung
Writers:
Mark L. Smith, Joseph Kosinski, Michael Crichton, Anne-Marie Martin
Actors:
Daisy Edgar-Jones, Glen Powell, Anthony Ramos, Brandon Perea, Maura
Tierney, Harry Hadden-Paton, Sasha Lane, Daryl McCormack, Kiernan
Shipka, Nik Dodani, David Corenswet, Tunde Adebimpe, Katy O'Brian,
David Born, Laura Poe, Austin Bullock, Stephen Oyoung, Alex Kingi,
Chris Adrien, James Paxton, Lily Smith, Capri O'Neill, Chris Zurcher
Metacritic
Blurb: Kate Carter (Daisy Edgar-Jones) is a former storm chaser
haunted by a devastating encounter with a tornado during her college
years who now studies storm patterns on screens safely in New York
City. She is lured back to the open plains by her friend, Javi
(Ramos) to test a groundbreaking new tracking system. There, she
crosses paths with Tyler Owens (Powell), the charming and reckless
social-media superstar who thrives on posting his storm-chasing
adventures with his raucous crew, the more dangerous the better. As
storm season intensifies, terrifying phenomena never seen before are
unleashed, and Kate, Tyler, Javi and their crews find themselves
squarely in the paths of multiple storm systems converging over
central Oklahoma in the fight of their lives.
Cat’s
Point of View:
I had about a billion reasons I wanted
to watch Twisters ASAP when it released. I'm going to do my
best not to re-hash every point I made in my Top20 for July 2024 article. Let's just say that I was very
passionate about my choice to list this stand-alone sequel as my #1
pick.
My daughter and I settled into our
Cinemark seats for a midday show on Saturday, and were pleased to see
that even an early show had great attendance. I'm rooting for this
film to do well at the box office.
The important question is clearly: Did
Twisters live up to the media hype, and – more importantly –
my expectations?
Hell yes.
One important facet of Twisters
that I had been looking forward to was immersiveness. I remember so
vividly how something so small as an adjustment of bass frequency in
the audio mixing for the original Twister (1996) brought the
rumble of the terrifying storms alive. I had high hopes that today's
technology would offer a further enhanced experience to bring these
destructive wind-columns of doom to life on the screen (and in my
nightmares). I was not disappointed. The effects were realistic and
mesmerizing – much like real-world tornado footage. The familiar
seat rumbling was there, but taken up to the next level. If there had
been wind machines and misters spraying water on the audience, I
might've had a panic attack in my seat, thinking I was really in a
storm. Thank goodness the Digital XD screen experience wasn't THAT
real.
Twisters was so much more than
the fancy effects on screen.
I feel like this sequel successfully
took the next logical step in the story without re-hashing the
original film with new characters. There are plenty parallels to the
original narrative and film nuances, but they're all either logically
driven by the nature of what storm-chasing is at the nuts-and-bolts
level or clearly homage to what had come before.
Twisters was clearly a
love-letter to its predecessor, as well as paying tribute to the
fallen. Bill Paxton (Aliens, Twister, Edge of Tomorrow), who
we lost in 2017 was a huge part of the 1996 movie's success, and some
of its most quotable moments. His son, James Paxton (The Cleaner,
How I met Your Father, The Uncanny), actually had a small role in
this movie. Twisters also offers a subtle in memoriam to the
TWISTEX team, led by veteran storm-chaser Tim Samaras, who tragically
died in the 2.6 mile-wide 2013 El Reno, OK tornado.
While there were elements of Twisters
that were amped up and a little over-the-top for the sake of creative
license and adventurous fun for the cinematic experience, I was happy
to see that – as with its predecessor – the story generally kept
the science side based in reality. In fact, Twisters earned a
10/10 stamp of approval from
well known real-life “extreme meteorologist” Reed
Timmer, PhD (Tornado Chasers, Storm Chasing: The Anthology, Storm
Rising). I've been following Timmer's career since his
involvement in the Storm Chasers (2007-2011) Discovery show, which
followed various teams throughout chase season. Timmer's team, an
IMAX documentary crew, and the TWISTEX team were the primary groups
shown as they sought out the storms for the sake of important
life-saving data. As it turns out, Timmer was also one of the
scientific consultants for this film. It's also entirely probable
that elements of Glen Powell's (Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous,
Hit Man, Anyone But You) “Tornado Wrangler” character were
based on or inspired by Timmer.
It wasn't all spinny wind and
screaming, though. There was a really good balance of humor with
thrills, much like Twister also had. One minute, my daughter
had my hand in a vice-grip and the next we were both laughing. It
wasn't in any sort of jarring transition, either. It all felt
natural. I was also really excited that Twisters “flipped
the script” with some of the elements of this new story in order to
offer a different perspective than we'd been presented before.
The cast wrangled these roles as well
as I hoped they would. I even felt a greater connection to Daisy
Edgar-Jones's (Fresh, Where the Crawdads Sing, War of the Worlds)
character than I did her counterpart in the original movie (if we
were to make direct comparisons). Powell's performance was as wild
and layered as I had hoped. Ahead of taking up the reigns of the
Superman mantle for DC, David Corenswet (Look Both Ways, Pearl,
Lady in the Lake) did a great job playing a character as likable
as Jonas was in the original. I could keep going, but you get the
idea.
The only note about Twisters
that I have that could even remotely be considered a negative is a
warning to any audience members that might get motion-sick easily.
There was a bit more shaky-cam than I would have liked, but it wasn't
as bad as some found-footage films. It was reasonable for the scenes
it happened in. The real culprit of the disorientation, however, came
from the visuals of the spinning wind in some scenes and the
fast-moving flying debris within the rotation. There were moments I
felt like I was on an old merry-go-round that had been set spinning
out of control. I don't say this to dissuade anyone from watching,
though. Twisters was amazing on the big-screen, but for those
that have their equilibrium jangled easily, the Digital XD or IMAX
screen experiences might not be an ideal choice.
I look forward to watching Twisters
again many more times in the future, much as I have its predecessor.
I'd even be on board if the powers that be chose to make another
sequel, as long as they took the same care they did this time.
Rotten
Tomatoes Critic Score – 78%
Rotten
Tomatoes Audience Score –
92%
Metascore
– 65%
Metacritic
User Score –
5.0/10
IMDB
Score –
7.1/10
Trust
the Dice: Cat’s Rating – 5/5
P.S. - If you're interested in a little comparison of the science side of storm chasing vs. the movie magic, Reed Timmer put out a video on YouTube with a quick list. Caution, Timmer's video contains SPOILERS so watch it after you enjoy the movie first!
A Little Lagniappe ("something extra") - The3 official term for a fear of tornadoes and hurricanes is "Lilapsophobia."
Movie
Trailer:
