Jan De Bont’s high-octane blockbuster Twister turns 28 this year and still packs a punch. The summer action-er has aged exceedingly well thanks to a tight script, committed lead and supporting performances, hilariously over-the-top set pieces, and, yes, some incredible storm effects that continue to impress. It remains a crowd pleaser not only because the action hits just right but because the 1996 film provides enough emotional stakes amid the chaos that you truly care what happens to storm chasers at the story’s core.
Flash forward to 2024 and the highly-anticipated proto-sequel Twisters. The disaster epic desperately tries to replicate the magic of the original but falls woefully short, largely due to a depressingly slight script from Mark L. Smith that gives its talented cast virtually nothing to work with. That said, if you’re in it for the pure spectacle, there’s more than enough here to entertain.
Daisy Edgar-Jones takes centre stage here as Kate Carter, an almost preternaturally talented tornado chaser who has sworn off the dangerous, in-person meteorology after a bad call in the field led to the traumatic loss of almost her entire team. Years later, after relocating to New York and devoting her talents to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the other surviving team member (Anthony Ramos) tempts her back to the chase–temporarily. Amid a rash of unusually sustained storm activity in Tornado Alley, it seems the perfect time to re-trial her earlier thesis that if you can increase the moisture within the storm centre, you can collapse the whirlwind from within.
Before you can say “howdy”, Carter encounters Tyler Owens, Glen Powell’s charming, cowboy hat-wearing storm-chaser who, as a YouTube influencer, has seemingly single-handedly made weather tracking the latest, most popular trend. We quickly learn Owens is more than just a shallow showboat with his face on swag shirts, as is his accompanying team. Turns out they all have a common goal: protecting and helping the people in the path of these life-changing natural disasters. As funnel after funnel appears throughout the state of Oklahoma and beyond, the two and their teams work to get the information they need to make real change.
If you’re looking for connections to the 1996 original, you’ll be searching for a while. There is a nod to the ‘Dorothy’ capsule containing the ‘scientific’ sensors developed by Jo and Bill Harding (Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton), and a brief cameo from Paxton’s son, but that’s it. It seems like a missed opportunity and a simple way to build in initial audience interest, but instead, Twisters starts from almost a completely clean slate. At least in terms of storyline. The rest borrows heavily from its predecessor, inviting unfortunate comparisons from the very start.
Like Jo Harding, Kate is truly affected by the losses in her past, and there is ample time (and talent in Edgar-Jones) to explore the push-and-pull of passion and grief. Instead, director Lee Isaac Chung relies on long shots of our pensive lead and a yearning soundtrack with on-the-nose lyrics to convey what little depth is allowed. We’re introduced to her loving mother (a great Maura Tierney) and get a taste of her life-long passion for altruism via scientific discovery, but just why that’s enough for Tyler to fall head over heels for Kate and partner with her to achieve her goals seems unclear. That they both want to help the general population is clear and admirable, but what’s missing here is personal stakes. In the original, not only did they have scientific goals in mind but they had family and friends in the path of the storms. They had immediate and catastrophic worries weighing them down. That feeling of impending doom and possible tragedy is strangely absent here, despite the many dangerous and CGI-filled moments of peril.
Both Edgar-Jones and Powell give their all and truly throw themselves into each increasingly precarious scenario. They do their best to generate chemistry between their polar opposite characters, but the script sadly doesn’t give them enough time together to make any connection believable. It’s hard to root for them as a couple or even as individuals when we’re not given anything to connect to.
We’re not given much time to get to know the accompanying misfit crew, either. In 1996, we had small but stellar turns from Philip Seymour Hoffman, Alan Ruck and more, but here Sasha Lane, Tunde Adebimpe, and their co-stars are barely given a second to get a word in, never mind a moment to shine. So all in all, we’re not given anyone to root for or worry about full stop throughout the film’s 122-minute run time.
Perhaps the most egregious and noticeable absence from Twisters is airborne farm animals. Or the lack of them. Where were the flying cows? If your film about tornadoes doesn’t have any soaring bovines, can it really be considered complete? It’s a question worth asking.
Lack of winged beasts aside, more often than not, the humour in Twisters does work. Though some one-liners fall flat, feeling too forced, they nail the comic relief in Harry Hadden-Paton’s British journalist. His fish-out-of-water reactions continually hit just the right note as he rides along with Tyler’s rag-tag crew. The ever-reliable Paul Scheer also appears in a memorably amusing small supporting role right toward the close of the film.
One notable difference is in the villain of the piece. In the original, Cary Elwes’ science-stealing rival storm chaser provides all the opportunities for jeers and boos. In Twisters, the big bad for the majority of the film happens to be the tornadoes themselves. Understandable, given their unpredictability and ferocity, but the writers seem to second-guess their decision and so introduce a nefarious character late in the game–a tycoon misusing tornado victims’ data for personal gain–and it barely registers.
What does land pointedly in scene after scene is where the action takes place. In case you were unsure at any stage of the action, Twisters takes place in the heart of America. To ensure this registers with audiences, there are rodeos where both human and horse participants festooned with American flags, a plethora of ear-splittingly misplaced country songs, and even a flag shirt worn by our heroine in key scenes. You can’t help but think if they’d spent less time on unnecessary Americana, and more time on character and plot development, they might have had something truly spectacular for an expectant summer crowd.
If you’re in it simply for the disaster of it all, though, there are more than enough optic confectionary to keep you interested. The tornado scenes are visually stunning and equally exciting and are clearly intended to one-up the effects of its predecessor. Sometimes that leads to some unintended amusing moments, but that doesn’t detract from the pure spectacle.
Going up against the original Twister was always going to be a difficult prospect, there’s no doubt, but you’d hope that would mean a considered, impressive cinematic effort from all involved. But when you get only some pulling their full weight, the resulting lop-sided production makes you wish that they’d maybe they’d not made the attempt at all.
Twisters is in theatres nationwide now.
