Twisters Review
This hard-rocking, fist-pumping, cheese-filled actioner takes itself a little too seriously and a little too sciency to truly be great, but whenever Glen Powell is on screen, it feels like it has the energy to fight a twister with its bare knuckles.
Kate Cooper (Daisy Edgar-Jones) retires from storm chasing after a disastrous attempt to capture data for her Twister-stopping chemical solution drives her from the industry and the state. Her new life in New York is interrupted by Javi (Anthony Ramos), calling her back home with the promise of new technology that can help map and prevent Twister-related disasters in Oklahoma, but when she goes back she finds their work interrupted by viral storm chaser Tyler Owens (Glen Powell). As Glen and Kate form a closer bond, and Javi is revealed to not be as honorable as Kate might want, the Twisters come thick and fast; and Kate might have to revisit her old, tragic experiment to save the people of Oklahoma from disaster.
Directed by Lee Isaac Chung and written by Joseph Kosinski, Twisters is a spiritual successor to the 1996 film Twister. This new version seems intent on mixing a scientific lens with a gung-ho jingoistic country attitude, and stumbles most when it focuses on the former rather than the latter.
Twisters is at its absolute best when Powell and his team are blaring country songs as they drive into the heart of a twister and light it up with fireworks. It’s at its best when Kate and Tyler are taking cover post-rodeo in an abandoned hotel pool as a twister rages overhead. It’s at it’s best when Tyler is holding onto someone as they are being sucked out of a cinema by a mammoth twister.
It doesn’t work quite as well when the sciency jargon starts to infiltrate. The chatter about chemical solutions, the guff about a trio of radars capturing the cyclone, and the general science discussions just really kill the fun and momentum.
The other issue is the length. At nearly 2 hours, the film really drags with one twister too many. The end of the second act, start of the third, feels sluggish, and for a film like this that needs to pump through on the adrenaline and fun of the premise, it would have benefited from one more pass in the edit suite.
Ultimately, Twisters remains a blast of fun air, and if you can tune out from the guff and focus on that fun, you’ll have a great time.
