Twisters

The Doctor’s Diagnosis: B

               I honestly didn’t have particularly high hopes going into Twisters. Actually, to put it more bluntly, I didn’t give a shit about this movie from the moment that it was announced. While the original Twister was a massive success back in 1996, I’m still not exactly sure why. It isn’t a bad movie, but it is hardly as fondly remembered as other blockbusters from that era. Almost everyone has seen it, but rarely does anyone muster much enthusiasm for it.

               But this is the age of the legacy sequel and that means every massive hit from the 80s and 90s must now have a decades-late follow-up, necessity be damned. This is an instance, though, where my rock-bottom expectations came in handy. Twisters is a surprisingly fun, entertaining movie. It isn’t particularly smart and it certainly isn’t innovative, but as far as big, dumb disaster movies go, this is a solid two hours of entertainment that should be seen on a massive screen for full effect. And I actually like it better than the original Twister. Yeah, I said it.

               Our lead is Daisy Edgar-Jones as Kate, a graduate student in meteorology (or something) who is testing a method for destroying tornadoes as the basis for her dissertation. Unfortunately, this method requires one to literally get right next to a tornado, which seems a bit of a design flaw, and the disastrous field test leaves most of her research team dead. Five years later, Kate is still haunted by the experience and working in New York City. She is lured by one of her old colleagues to return to Oklahoma and assist his new team of high-tech storm chasers locate tornadoes to test their new equipment. They encounter a rival group of storm chasers, led by Tyler (Glen Powell), and the rest of the movie is basically these two groups competing to find tornadoes.  

               I described this as a legacy sequel, but Twisters is really a remake. Other than the presence of the “Dorothy” device, which was the anti-tornado technology invented by Helen Hunt’s character in the original, there aren’t any direct references or connections to Twister. I kept expecting Helen Hunt to turn out to be Kate’s aunt or something, but no. On one hand, it’s refreshing that they didn’t shoehorn the legacy characters into this movie (although they may just be waiting for the sequels to pull that nonsense, like the Jurassic World series…shudder).

On the other hand, this really is a point-for-point retread of the original. We have the opening scene to establish tornado-related trauma in the backstory of our lead, who is a hot blonde in both films. We have two teams of storm chasers, one being sophisticated and educated and the other being more rowdy, down-to-earth folk. We have a comic relief, fish-out-of-water character. We have the scene in the middle of the movie where a fun event (this time a rodeo) is interrupted by a tornado. We have a movie theater showing a classic horror movie being destroyed by a tornado (this time it’s Frankenstein; I think it was The Shining in the original). In terms of characters and plot structure, this really is the same goddamn movie as Twister.

               However, complete lack of originality aside, Twisters is more entertaining than it has any right to be. The film moves at a brisk pace, only briefly pausing for dialogue between scenes of stormy destruction, and is never boring. The disaster effects are impressive and effective and the film regularly (almost too regularly) delivers on its promise of mindless, large-scale destruction. The stakes also feel legitimate because of the film’s oddly high bodycount. Twisters doesn’t shy away from leaving bodies in the path of the storm and I really wasn’t sure who was going to make it out of this alive aside from the three main characters, making it surprisingly suspenseful at times. It is, to use a cliché’ critic’s expression, a fun ride.

               It also works because of the surprisingly endearing lead characters created by emerging stars Daisy Edgar-Jones and Glen Powell. What could have easily been generic disaster-movie characters are elevated, by both the performances and some oddly solid writing, into three-dimensional people that you will want to have a beer with by the time the movie is done. Even the secondary characters, who are usually just annoying tropes in a movie like this, feel like actual people. There isn’t anything revolutionary here, sure, but its almost sadly refreshing to see a big-budget movie that isn’t filled with annoying, condescending assholes.

               For more than just the obvious reason, Twisters is a successful throwback to 90s blockbusters. This isn’t a brilliant or innovative film, nor does it try to be, but it’s hard not to have a good time with it. This movie has no politics and it has no messages. It somehow even goes its entire running time without blaming climate change for the existence of tornadoes. It is a fun, big-budget Hollywood spectacle that doesn’t once lecture its audience or feel like it only exists to serve some larger cinematic universe. For that alone, I can understand why my packed theater gave a loud ovation as the end credits started to roll. Our standards have certainly dropped since the 90s, but Twisters still delivered on them.

Image by: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twisters_(film)#/media/File:Twisters_Official_US_Theatrical_Poster.jpg