Review: Twisters

Image courtesy of Universal Pictures.

Lee Isaac Chung's "Twisters" is another in a long line of sequels that I didn't necessarily think we needed, but surpassed my expectations. The 2022 "Top Gun" sequel was another. Maybe this is a Glen Powell niche.

This sequel - which comes 28 years after Jan De Bont's original picture - doesn't involve any of the same characters of the original film, but is set in the same world of people who chase after tornadoes, if that's an actual thing. 

The film opens with a harrowing sequence during which stormchaser Kate (Daisy Edgar-Jones) and her crew test out a theory about how to bring a twister to a halt through science - please don't ask me to explain this. All but Kate and one other crew member, Javi (Anthony Ramos), survive the experience and the picture jumps ahead five years.

Kate is now working in New York, but gets roped back to her home state of Oklahoma after a visit by Javi, who has come up with a new method of using science to stop tornadoes - again, please don't ask me to explain. Although wary at first, Kate finds herself once again chasing storms and finds a worthy rival in Tyler (Powell), a "tornado wrangler" whose crew drives directly into the eye of the storm to shoot off fireworks and generally show off.

But Tyler is a little more worldly than he may originally come across and he and Kate eventually team up for her experiments. The film has some moderate characterization and there's, surprisingly, not really a romance angle as one might expect. No, "Twisters" knows where it's bread is buttered and much of the film involves the various crews chasing after the storms. As such, there are numerous impressively-crafted special effects sequences, including one involving an oil refinery and another in which a theater full of people cling on for dear life.

In one of the stranger transfers from indies to big budget filmmaking, "Twisters" is directed by Chung, whose previous film was the lovely, Oscar-nominated "Minari." But much like that film, he has a sense of life in the Midwest that feels genuine. Ultimately, the visuals in "Twisters" dominates all else, but since much of the film is a marvel of visual wizardry, it makes for some entertaining summer moviegoing.