Twisters Enhances the Legacy of Twister

Release Date：Jul/19/2024

Genre：Action/Adventure/Thriller

Director：Lee Isaac Chung

Cast：Daisy Edgar-Jones、Glen Powell、Anthony Ramos、Brandon Perea、Maura Tierney

Viola's Rating：7.1

Anyone interested in meteorology or natural disaster feature films would be familiar with the 1996 classic Twister. Almost 30 years later, director Lee Isaac Chung, who grew up in Tornado Alley and has experienced numerous storms since childhood, launched a standalone sequel, Twisters, on July 19, 2024, paying tribute to the original, but it’s even better.

This adventurous action thriller follows meteorologist and retired tornado-chaser Kate Carter (Daisy Edgar-Jones), who is persuaded to return to Oklahoma to work with a new team and new technologies.

Twisters opens with an amazing and shocking flashback, providing the audience with enough information to get to know the characters, including their flaws and weaknesses. The film excels in character development by giving out these details as bookends, and when the character growth is revealed in the end, it all pays off.

On the other hand, Glen Powell’s character, Tyler Owens, is an intruder in this already-established story, while also adding some spice. Powell is fantastic at playing charming bad boys like 'Hangman' in Top Gun: Maverick. The difference here is that he’s the protagonist, so viewers can actually enjoy his charisma instead of despising him. He’s a brilliant actor who shouldn’t be typecast, so hopefully, he gets to play other kinds of characters in the future.

With such good-looking leads, it’s inevitable to include some ambiguous romantic interactions between the protagonists. However, Twisters is not a romance. The seemingly romantic subplot serves more as a functional twist in the storyline.

Since the whole flick is about twisters, there’s a lot of jargon and terminology that might make it hard for the audience to enjoy Twisters. To help, there’s a reporter character who asks questions about meteorological knowledge, serving as the audience’s point of view and making the motion picture easier to understand.

As said in Twisters, storm-chasing is a team activity. The movie shows how tornado chasers delegate their work and achieve their goals. Although it’s hazardous, everyone has their own reasons to be a daredevil, whether it’s being an influencer or creating a safer future for residents in Tornado Alley. Without their efforts, we wouldn’t be able to better understand whirlwinds.

Besides the new elements, Twisters also pays tribute to the original classic through Easter eggs like the Dorothy device used in Twister and plot parallels. Although special effects are much more advanced nowadays, director Chung insisted on live shots in Tornado Alley with several jet plane engines on site, creating an authentic storm feel. This not only makes the picture excellent but also a better version of the 1996 one.

Picture Credit: IMDb