TWISTERS
(director/writer: Lee Isaac Chung; screenwriter: Mark L. Smith, story by Joseph Kosinski; cinematographer: Dan Mindel; editor: Terilyn A. Shropshire; music: Benjamin Wallfisch; cast: Daisy Edgar-Jones (Kate Cooper), Glenn Powell (Tyler Owens), Anthony Ramos (Javi), Brandon Perea (Boone), Maura Tierney (Cathy), Sasha Lane (Lily), Harry Hadden-Paton (Ben), David Corenswet (Scott), Daryl McCormack (Jeb), Tunde Adebimpe (Dexter), Katy O’Brien (Dani), Nik Dodani (Praveen); Runtime: 122; MPAA Rating: PG-13; producers: Frank Marshall, Patrick Crowley; A Universal Pictures release of Warner Bros.; 2024)
“It didn’t blow me away.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Lee Isaac Chung (“Lucky Life”/”Minari”) directs and co-writes the stand alone CGI-laden sequel to Jan de Bont’s storm-chaser box-office hit in 1996. It’s co-written with Mark L. Smith from a story by Joseph Kosinski (originally scheduled to direct). As a summer blockbuster, it’s an entertaining film that’s good enough to satisfy those looking for a well-crafted breezy film on tornadoes.
It’s set during a generational tornado season of destructive storms in Oklahoma, leaving large wreckage all over the state.
Kate Carter (Daisy-Edgar-Jones) is a physics whiz who is knowledgeable about tornadoes. She has applied for a research grant to advance her Ph.D. project to neutralize storms by absorbing the moisture trapped in their wind funnels.
In the opening scene, Kate and her college friends are storm- chasers trying to test their experiment, but underestimate the power of the storms with tragic results.
Skipping ahead five years later, the Oklahoma farm-girl, Kate, is back in NYC working at a boring desk job as a meteorologist.
But she returns as a storm-chaser when her fellow survivor Javi (Anthony Ramos) needs her expertise for another data-gathering storm-chaser event in Oklahoma (using new info on how to map the inside of a tornado). The big-talking, Cowboy-hatted, Tyler Owens (Glen Powell), from Arkansas, and his obnoxious, media savvy, rowdy crew, well-financed through a YouTube channel and well-equipped for the tornado action, are there for some human drama. The crew includes the following: videographer Boone (Brandon Perea), who thinks he’s participating in an extreme-sports event; the thrill-seeking drone operator Lily (Sasha Lane); the nervous science geek Dexter (Tunde Adebimpe); and Dani (Katy O’Brian), who is a fist-pumping cheer-leading mechanic. Hanging around the crew is Ben (Harry Hadden-Paton), a London journalist profiling Tyler.
The CGI storms look real.
The human story is bearable, when it sticks to the science.
To its credit, it refers to the effects of climate change without lecturing us. To its discredit, it tells us too little on the effects of climate change on the weather.
It didn’t blow me away.
REVIEWED ON 7/12/2024 GRADE: B-
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