TWISTERS movie review: sequel delivers on 1996 original's goofy fun

“It’s science and religion.”

The long-awaited TWISTERS blew into cinemas worldwide this past weekend, amassing a gargantuan global haul of $120 million with a staggering $80 mil of that coming from the United States alone.

The Oklahoma-set sequel to the 1996 disaster thriller stars Glen Powell as a rockstar storm chaser named Tyler Owens who teams up with the science-minded Kate Cooper (Daisy Edgar Jones) in an attempt to destabilize a tornado during a rampant storm season outbreak.

The film, directed by two-time Oscar nominee Lee Isaac Chung (Minari) was written by Mark L Smith (The Boys in the Boat) with the story by Joseph Kosinski (Top Gun: Maverick, Tron Legacy).

Universal and Warner Bros, who brought the first film roaring to life in the mid-1990s had a lot of pressure riding on them to bring this junk-food classic into a new era, especially one that is so intrinsically linked to Bill Paxton’s memory and to the DNA of Oklahoma itself, spawning a generation of storm chasers.

The original Twister film is a goofy, 90s-soaked action-adventure film that has the most minimal basis in science and has, somehow, been twisted by some critics trying to dog on TWISTERS as a weather science documentary rather than the loud, boisterous, blockbuster it always has been.

TWISTERS, using the James Cameron “Aliens” method of sequel naming, follows Kate Cooper, a weather clairvoyant in the same sense that Bill Paxton’s character was in the original.

In an attempt to destabilize an out-of-control tornado, almost all of her friends were killed.

Now Kate works for a National Weather organization based out of New York City (a not-so-subtle Oklahoma City stands-in for the New York scenes) when her former teammate Javi (Anthony Ramos, still finding his career footing) approaches her to come with him to Oklahoma on the cusp of the biggest tornado outbreak in recent history to put his team’s 3D-mapping technology to the test and to find out how tornados work.

Once back home in Oklahoma, Kate crosses paths with Tyler Owens, an internet-famous celebrity storm chaser dubbed a “Hillbilly with a YouTube channel” played by America’s new leading man and Tom Cruise’s heir-apparent, Glen Powell.

Putting their two wildly different ideologies aside, Kate and Tyler team up to put her theory on tornado destabilization to the test as monstrous twisters decimate Oklahoma.

I have seen TWISTERS twice at the time of writing this review. My first screening of it was in a sold-out showing in Ark City on a Sunday with my friends, and my second time was Monday afternoon in a packed 1 p.m. showing at The Hub with my mother.

If TOP GUN MAVERICK proved in 2022 that “crowd-pleasing movies” were back, TWISTERS has taken that baton and is sprinting with it, hurtling toward the incoming storm that is this weekend’s release of DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE.

The audience laughed, clapped, cheered, gasped, and gawked at TWISTERS in a way I hadn’t seen in a long, long time.

First off, TWISTERS is not a true-to-life weather awareness movie.

Like the original film, this movie makes no claims to being based in any sort of reality. I saw a review from an Oklahoma newspaper calling out TWISTERS for being an “offensive” film to weather science and to Oklahomans in general, but that would imply the film was ever trying to be anything more than a fun time.

For instance, TWISTERS exists in a world where any kind of weather prediction is a myth.

Anyone in Oklahoma knows that between April and June, you aren’t leaving the house. You’re glued to Channel 4, watching the radars and alerts pour in off of your WeatherBug or Weather Channel app, making sure your phone is charged and your bags are packed to rush out to your storm cellar at the drop of a hat.

In TWISTERS, tornadic storms materialize within seconds and lay waste to swaths of land and towns.

In TWISTERS, the entire state is enveloped in a soundtrack where Luke Combs, Miranda Lambert, Charley Crockett, Wyatt Flores, Dylan Gossett, Shania Twain, and other country stars drop at the first change in wind patterns.

TWISTERS doesn’t care about realism or making some dramatic to-do about Oklahoma’s very real (and very deadly) history with tornados, but Director Lee Isaac Chung still finds time to address the devastation in a way that doesn’t grind the film’s swashbuckling pacing to a halt.

After an outbreak in an unspecified town, our heroes converge on the location to assist with cleanup efforts in a way that feels natural, respectful, and still in line with the film’s tone.

TWISTERS is mostly about, to put it in TikTok-era terms, “the vibes”.

Director Chung, who painted a moving and intimate portrait of the Midwest through the eyes of South Korean immigrants in Minrai, once again utilizes the natural beauty of Oklahoma (standing in for Arkansas in the aforementioned film) with sweeping shots of rain clouds over lush fields and intimate moments of the characters in nature.

His grasp on the film’s action is tight here, and the screen is never cluttered or marred by erratic cuts. Everything flows on screen with a sort of elegance and rhythm which makes his transition to independent filmmaking to the blockbuster leagues a natural one.

I previously mentioned the soundtrack, which is used to great effect here.

While it is nowhere near the quality of Mark Mancina’s orchestral score from the original which also featured artists like Van Halen, Alison Kraiss, The Goo Goo Dolls, and Red Hot Chili Peppers, TWISTERS orchestral work by Benjamin Wallfisch is intimate and also intense and is accented by the clever and perfectly placed use of songs from the whos’ who of country greats.

Okay, okay, but what about the characters? The plot?

Glen Powell, America’s sweetheart, skyrocketed into the stratosphere of leading men with the one-two punch of 2022’s TOP GUN MAVERICK followed by last year’s romantic comedy ANYONE BUT YOU, and TWISTERS did well to capitalize on Powell’s devilishly good looks and incomparable charisma.

His chemistry with Daisy Edgar-Jones’ Kate completely carried their scenes, and the entire theater swooned at one especially funny scene where Powell’s Tyler Owens marches stoically through the rain in nothing by a white tee and a cowboy hat.

Anthony Ramos’ Javi is Kate’s best friend, and while Ramos has been inconsistently cast in various slots in the past trying to break his musical theater career, he fits nicely here as the stoic and conflicted supporting lead.

A surprise was David Corenswet’s Scott, the stand-in for Cary Elwes’ antagonistic “corporate storm chaser”. Corenswet was immensely unlikeable, which will be contrasted nicely when he dons Superman’s cape in James Gunn’s upcoming SUPERMAN reboot, now filming.

Other additions to the cast included Brandon Perea who was a knockout in Jordan Peele’s 2022 feature NOPE and plays a similarly funny and charismatic sidekick to Glen Powell in the form of “Boone”.

Sasha Lane, who deserves so many more roles after her incredible debut in 2016’s AMERICAN HONEY, is a part of Powell’s storm-chasing team, and she’s always fun to watch, so I was happy to see her.

Also making an appearance is Maura Tierney who was a mainstay on the TV series “E.R.” and mostly known for her role in Jim Carrey’s 1997 comedy LIAR LIAR.

The plot is similar enough in broad-strokes to the original film, but there is a subplot having to do with a land developer buying tornado-striken properties that really goes nowhere, but it doesn't have to, because that's not why anyone is watching this. I respect the idea though, as it feels very "Michael Crichton", the late sci-fi author who penned the first film as well as JURASSIC PARK.

One stand-out moment at the climax in El Reno has to do with the entire town (and our leads) hunkering down in a movie theater showing the 1931 FRANKENSTEIN film where Colin Clive's Dr. Frankenstein shouts "It's alive!" as the monstrous twister rips the theater wall apart.

You could probably interpret that a number of ways, making me think there was a more apparent "manmade climate change" message (in-line with the late Chrichton) that was perhaps lost a few script drafts ago.

It would have been easy for TWISTERS to be a movie slavishly devoted to the original like most “legacy sequels” find themselves thanks to THE FORCE AWAKENS, but there is almost no mention or nod to the characters and events of the original film which allows TWISTERS to really breathe.

The film hangs on a sweet ending which was shot at the Will Rodgers Airport and was re-shot from the leaked ending of Powell and Edgar-Jones making out in favor of the two rushing off to chase more storms, smartly prolonging the "will they-won't they" romantic payoff for a sequel rather than undercutting Edgar-Jones's character development overcoming her tornado PTSD.

TWISTERS is a crowd-pleasing good time that is sure to leave you wanting more, and judging by the massive box office haul and cliffhanger ending, you can expect to feel it and chase it again in the near future.

TWISTERS is now playing everywhere.