Twisters
Rating: 3.5/5
By: Nathaniel Simpson
Twister is one of the ultimate disaster movies, one that someone thinks of when the disaster film genre is brought up. It was just a very fun, energetic and, at times, terrifying, film about what these giant tornadoes can do and how much havoc they can wreck. Therefore, in a world where older films are getting reboots or sequels, it seemed inevitable that there would be a sequel to the tornado film, which we get in 2024's Twisters. The film, which stars Daisy Edgar Jones and Glen Powell, is quite fun and makes up for the character development we get in the first one, but struggles to catch the magic of the first film at times.
The film revolves around Jones' Kate, who was a tornado chaser before a freak accident caused her to get out of that line of work and move to New York to be work in their national weather division. When Javi (Anthony Ramos), a member of her old crew, finds her and convinces her to come back to Oklahoma to help him set up tracking devices for tornadoes to help save lives, she decides to go so she can try to save as many lives as possible. What she doesn't realize is that she is going to meet Tyler Owens (Powell), an internet celebrity who has gained his fame by chasing tornadoes and doing idiotic things while doing them. When secrets start to come out, it shows Kate that she may have to team up with the internet celebrity to find a way to stop these massive tornadoes.
I think the film opens up perfectly, setting up the characters of Kate and her crew before they go out to chase a massive tornado. From there and they start to realize that things start to go awry, it turns into a fantastic disaster sequence, that has such great acting from Jones, Kiernan Shipka, and Daryl McCormack. It is a great opening to the film to show the audience what they are getting into, including how beautifully haunting the graphics of this giant twister are. After this great opening sequence though, I feel like the movie loses steam and momentum for a little bit.
I honestly do think the second half of this film is much better than the first. The first half spends a lot of its time introducing the newer characters, as well as dealing with Kate's reluctance to help Javi find a way to track these tornadoes. I also feel like the first half sort of drags quite a bit at times, and seemingly has a hard time of trying to get where they are headed; they're moving forward without a real destination they want to get to. Then, when we get into the second half (which starts around when Kate and Tyler goes to the rodeo), the movie really starts to gain steam and show this end goal that the characters are trying to achieve.
While I mentioned in my review for this film's predecessor that they lacked a lot of character and story development, this movie fixes that quite a bit in the second half. When Kate goes home to her mom, with Tyler following her unbeknownst to Kate, they really start to build on Kate's character quite a bit, and show how much she has changed from when she was young to the the events that happened at the beginning of this film. At the same time, it allows the characters of Kate and Tyler to really connect and grow together as characters, which allows them to team up at the end and explore a more romantic connection.
The acting is quite good here, especially Jones. She looks genuinely terrified throughout the huge tornado scenes, and you can feel that radiate off the screen. At the same time, I think she has great chemistry with both Powell and Ramos, especially the former. I mean, Jones and Powell together is such a great team in this film and just works incredibly well; I couldn't imagine anyone else pulling this off in a movie like this. Powell is, of course, incredibly charming while also performing his character in a way that shows him have multiple layers that you have to pull back to find the real person. Ramos is decent in the parts of the movie he is in, and I would say that it was fun to see David Corenswet play a straight up asshole throughout the movie.
While the movie doesn't really do anything new or unique, I think it is simply a fun and enjoyable summer blockbuster. I did enjoy the character development here and would say it outmatches the original in that regard, but it follows in the footsteps of what the original did. This feels like a modern version of the same sort of film, but I honestly did have a lot of fun and enjoyed myself throughout the movie.
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