Twisters
A belated sequel capitalises on the advances of special effects and climate change with crowd-pleasing finesse.
A step up from 4DX: Sasha Lane and Glen Powell
Image courtesy of Warner Bros/Universal Pictures
The weather has moved on a lot since 1996. That was the year of the release of Twister, two years before Daisy Edgar-Jones was born. Here, Daisy Edgar-Jones plays Kate Carter, an Oklahoma farm girl with a sixth sense about the weather. Her mother Cathy (Maura Tierney) reckons she’s “better than the cows” at sensing a menacing change in the atmosphere, and Kate is determined to find a way to temper the demons of Tornado Alley. “The worse the weather, the happier the girl,” reveals Cathy, and since 1996 the climate has been changing. Science has also moved on and meteorology has advanced exponentially, developing new measures such as cloud seeding and bioprecipitation. And the storms are getting stronger and more destructive and, what with the population explosion, there are now more houses to destroy. All in all, then, it is the perfect time for a sequel to Twister.
Considering the success of the first film – it was the second-highest grossing movie of 1996 – there have been many attempts to generate a sequel (Helen Hunt, the star of Twister, had proposed a version which was rejected by the studio), and it is a relief that Steven Spielberg is still involved, in the capacity of executive producer. The first smart move was to sign up Lee Isaac Chung to direct, fresh off his arthouse success with Minari. Inevitably, the sequel follows a certain formula (the movie cost $200m, so what do you expect?), but Chung provides the characters with an instant shorthand that makes them believable human beings, at least within the context of a massive popcorn blockbuster.
The London-born Daisy Edgar-Jones plays her third American in as many films but has never been this kooky or high-spirited – at least, until tragedy strikes. But while she’s trying to save lives, along comes tornado wrangler Tyler Owens, who appears more interested in selling T-shirts. A superstar on YouTube, Tyler is part of a new breed of thrill-seeker whose extreme sport of choice is chasing twisters. Emerging with a grin and a stetson, Glen Powell builds on his accelerating success with Anyone but You and Hit Man and we know his arrogance is headed for a fall. With two of the most attractive people in Oklahoma shoehorned into the same movie, one might anticipate the outcome, but neither Kate Carter nor Tyler Owens is exactly who they at first appear.
The other thing that has changed since 1996 is the quality of CGI and at times Twisters is almost too intense to endure. Unlike the subject matter of other mainstream attractions – aliens, superheroes, clever robots, prehistoric beasties (take your pick) – twisters are a real thing and the devastation of whole towns is on the increase. This is a horror that is all too quantifiable. There’s star wattage from Edgar-Jones and Powell, narrative twists that accompany the meteorological ones and scientific bravura as sexy as the swagger of Tyler Owens. You don’t really have to know the difference between silver iodide and sodium polyacrylate because there’ll be another storm along shortly.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Daisy Edgar-Jones, Glen Powell, Anthony Ramos, Brandon Perea, Maura Tierney, Sasha Lane, Harry Hadden-Paton, David Corenswet, Daryl McCormack, Tunde Adebimpe, Nik Dodani, Katy O’Brian, James Paxton.
Dir Lee Isaac Chung, Pro Frank Marshall and Patrick Crowley, Ex Pro Steven Spielberg, Screenplay Mark L. Smith, from a story by Joseph Kosinski, Ph Dan Mindel, Pro Des Patrick Sullivan, Ed Terilyn A. Shropshire, Music Benjamin Wallfisch, Costumes Eunice Jera Lee, Dialect coach Francie Brown, Meteorologist Joel Martin.
Universal Pictures/Warner Bros. Pictures/Amblin Entertainment/The Kennedy/Marshall Company-Warner Bros/Universal Pictures.
122 mins. USA. 2024. UK Rel: 17 July 2024. US Rel: 19 July 2024. Cert. 12A.
