We all love a good disaster movie. Whether it’s nature unleashing its unholy wrath, an asteroid about to destroy earth, or a volcano razing a town or city to the ground, they get your adrenaline pumping. Notice I said a good disaster movie, as many just think that they can throw chaos at the screen, and we will simply enjoy all of it. The best ones take a formula, even a well-used one, stick to it, and just try to one-up the last film of its kind that was made. Twisters falls in the latter category as it knows what kind of movie it’s supposed to be and lives up to what it promised us in the trailers even if it doesn’t really do anything new on its own.
Kate Carter (Daisy Edgar-Jones) is a brilliant meteorologist who used to have a sixth sense when it came to storm chasing until a tragic event ended her time in the field. Five years later, she is approached by former research colleague Javi (Anthony Ramos) who needs her help deploying new technology that will help scientists better understand how tornados operate. She relents and once back into operations, she meets Tyler Owens (Glen Powell), a YouTube-famous storm chaser who gets his kicks by literally driving into tornados. While finding him off-putting at first, Kate strikes up a friendship with him, and as they learn more about each other, she begins to see through the façade of those around her leaving her to wonder who she can trust as she attempts to study and survive these deadly forces of nature.
First off, this is not simply a retelling of the first movie. There is one small throwback, but Twisters sets out to do its own thing, and it does it well. It isn’t complicated either. In fact, except for the twist (pun not intended), you could say the movie plays out exactly as it did in the trailers. While some may say this isn’t a smart move, you have to ask if we really expected to see anything other than pretty people chasing storms? Of course not, and that’s exactly what we get.
It’s also a good thing our stars have such chemistry as much of the movie is focused on them and their relationships and not as much on the tornados themselves. Kate has real trauma and guilt that she is trying to work through, and while this isn’t meant to be a deep dive into the human psyche, the PTSD and anxiety she deals with shows up as it would in real life. Watching Daisy Edgar-Jones and Glen Powell play off each other is engaging as well, and seeing their relationship deepen as they find common ground and compassion for other people feels organic and real.
But how about the twisters themselves? Well, it’s not always the best CGI, but then we don’t have cows flying through the air, so that’s an improvement. I will say that the close-up shots of people frantically running away combined with the screaming winds whipping around in surround sound made me push myself back in my seat on multiple occasions like I was trying to escape as well – a rare feat that few movies have ever accomplished.
There is a big difference between a fluff and a fun movie. With fluff, you turn your brain off, eat popcorn, and just have a wildly good time. Fun moves are quite similar except that you don’t have to completely check out mentally to enjoy it, and Twisters falls squarely on the fun side. It’s not groundbreaking, you know everything that’s going to happen from the trailers, but in the long run, that doesn’t matter. It’s wild spectacle at its finest, and for a movie like this, that’s the highest compliment it can receive.