Twisters and its story of towering tornadoes reminds us of an incident our Editor found himself in. Whilst covering a story about a hurricane he and his female researcher found themselves in the eye of the storm and cowering in the basement of a house. But whilst Tiffany, his researcher, made it and was holding on for dear life our Editor only made it to the steps down to the basement before the wind blew him off his feet. Fortunately he was OK but unfortunately when he rang his wife he told her, ‘ Tiffany went down below and had got a good grip whilst I was trying to stand up before I got blown off.‘ Our Editor returned home to find his belonging in a bin bag outside the front door. (‘You’re fired!- Ed). This clearly contrived story leads us to the reboot of the 1996 summer blockbuster Twister.
There’s little connecting tissue between the two films though they both follow a similar path both opening with a scene where tragedy occurs. Twisters sees Kate Carter ( Daisy Edgar-Jones) and her college friends storm chasing in Oklahoma with a research project to neutralize tornadoes. It ends in tragedy that sees her step away from the project and five years later she now works behind a desk in New York as a meteorologist. It’s where Javi (Anthony Ramos) the surviving friend from the incident catches up with her. Having worked for the military he now runs a team backed by a wealthy investor who use radar units to create 3D scans of the tornados and he’s there to recruit Kate to help him and his team for a week.
Of course she agrees and its back to Oklahoma for some storm chasing where Javi’s team find themselves amongst amateur chasers and an opposing team led by Tyler Owens (Glen Powell) a sort of rock n roll weather man of social media and all the self-promotional arrogance that that entails. With his crew whose characterization extends only as far as their clothes they whoop and cheer, screaming like a small child ripped to the tits on fizzy drinks and a giant bag of Haribo, they all go after the tornadoes. But whereas Javi and Kate are keen to carry out research Tyler and his crew want to let off fireworks. The animosity between Kate and Tyler is inevitably going to thaw because hey ! It’s Glen Powell in a T-short and jeans and a glint in his eyes and whose star is very much on the ascendant after Top Gun Maverick and Hitman. Inevitably they are going to end up working together for the greater good in a neat inversion of her initial impression of him and his crew.
Lee Isaac Chung was not an obvious choice as director. His beautifully intimate film ‘Minari’ gave no hint that he would be an obvious choice for a big ballsy blockbuster and his portrayal of the communities devastated by the tornadoes is a reminder that there is a very real downside to the spectacle. Indeed the script’s hint at big business capitalizing on the fate of others is a prescient one but what it does choose to overlook so obviously is the climate change aspect that would be so pertinent in such a film about natural disasters.
But that aside this is a big summer blockbuster where it’s the spectacle that is everything and the leap in technology in the 25+ years since the original makes these tornadoes even more awesome and terrifying in equal measure none more so than when one rips through an oil refinery adding a funnel of fire to the mix. With the sound ratcheted up to the max and the natural terror of these phenomena on screen its seems a missed trick not to have had the film in 3D making it even more immersive. Since her move to Hollywood films Edgar-Jones roles have been varying shades of vanilla and Twisters is no different and it is really Powell with the screen appeal here. But it is those tornadoes of terror that are the real star of the show making this the ideal big screen summer blockbuster experience that should be seen on the biggest screen possible.
related feature : Lee Isaac Chung’s, ‘Minari’ reviewed
related feature : ‘Something in the Water’ – we talk shark action with Nicole Setsuko & Ellouise Shakespeare Hart
Here’s the Twisters trailer…..
