Twisters (2024) * *

 

Directed by:  Lee Isaac Chung

Starring:  Daisy Edgar-Jones, Glen Powell, Anthony Ramos, David Corenswet, Maura Tierney

Twister (1996), a movie which has no connection to Twisters except for the tornadoes, was centered by a love story between divorcing meteorologists played by Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton.  Twisters doesn't have much of a story in between the devastation caused by the tornadoes.  Its leads are appealing, but are ultimately upstaged by the storms.  

The tornadoes are convincingly displayed and if you've come for tornado porn, this is your movie, especially as one of the characters excitedly yells "TWINS!" when he sees his team is chasing a tornado that split into two.  Daisy Edgar-Jones plays Kate, who at the beginning of Twisters is attempting to win a grant by updating the Dorothy capsules which are drawn into a tornado and provide valuable information about it.  Okay, the Dorothy was also used in Twister, so there is a miniscule callback to the previous film.  That doesn't bother me anyway because I would prefer Twisters to be original and fresh rather than just recycling the first film. 

However, while chasing a tornado gleefully, Kate underestimates the power of the storm and witnesses two of her friends perish.  Five years later, Kate is working behind the scenes at the New York station of the National Weather Service when she is approached by her old friend Javi (Ramos), who survived the tornado from five years ago and asks her to return to Oklahoma to assist him in his venture working for a local developer.   Javi and his team study the aftermath of the storm destruction so the amoral developer can determine how much it'll cost to clean up so he can sell the land to other willing real estate barons. 

Also arriving on the scene is the charismatic charmer Tyler Owens (Powell), a storm chaser with millions of YouTube followers and a shameless marketer of t-shirts and memorabilia bearing his likeness.  Powell falls for Kate, of course, and gives us more dimension behind his ever-present cocky grin and shit-talking personality.   The camera loves Daisy Edgar-Jones and we can watch her even if in roles like hers in Twisters, where her job is to look guilt-ridden and unsure until the epiphany which turns things around.  

Those who came for the tornadoes won't be disappointed.  I understand with a movie titled Twisters that we'll get our fill of them, but after a while, the swirling winds, objects being carried away, and buildings crumbling all start to look the same.  You've seen one twister, you've seen them all.  It's all sound and fury, and you know the rest.