Twisters, 2024.
Directed by Lee Isaac Chung.
Starring Daisy Edgar-Jones, Glen Powell, Anthony Ramos, Brandon Perea, Maura Tierney, Harry Hadden-Paton, Sasha Lane, Daryl McCormack, Kiernan Shipka, Nik Dodani, David Corenswet, Tunde Adebimpe, Katy O’Brian, David Born, Paul Scheer, Laura Poe, Austin Bullock, Stephen Oyoung, Alex Kingi, Chris Adrien, Capri O’Neill, James Paxton, Lily Smith, and Chris Zurcher.
SYNOPSIS:
A retired tornado-chaser and meteorologist is persuaded to return to Oklahoma to work with a new team and new technologies.
For a brief moment, it seems director Lee Isaac Chung has found an interesting angle for Twisters. The indie darling (known for the beautifully moving rural drama Minari) takes from the Jan de Bont original (Twister), pitting rival tornado chase teams against one another, here with one of them educated and deeply invested in gathering field data that could theoretically be put to use and save lives while also looking to perfect an experiment that could instantly cause a cyclone to dissipate. Meanwhile, the other team appears to be adrenaline junkies, risk-taking for the hell of it and the social media clout. One could also argue that when it comes to film criticism (or any industry), they represent the obnoxious rise of influencers, people doing the same job despite having no qualifications or proper justifications, in turn, getting on the last nerve of everyone around them taking the work seriously.
Instead, this film is enemies-to-partners nonsense that, despite containing a healthy amount of action, is also unforgivably tedious. You see, the influencer storm chasers aren’t selling T-shirts and other merchandise for personal profit, but because they also care, turning around and using that money to purchase supplies for those with property affected by such intense depictions of very bad weather (of course I’m sneaking the dumbest MPAA content warning in the history of movies into this review.) They have hearts of gold. There is also no subtlety whatsoever here, meaning that once the real selfish, all-about-business-profits individual is revealed, the script (written by Mark L. Smith and based on a story by Top Gun: Maverick‘s Joseph Kosinski) has the character shouting that he doesn’t care about any of the civilians, just in case someone with no brain cells showed up to the screening and doesn’t understand what’s happening.
That’s not the only element of Twisters treating its audience like Neanderthals that have just emerged from underneath a rock, as the country soundtrack is also filled with lyrics blatantly describing either what is happening or what just happened. Someone is distraught and heading home? Better fire up some lyrics talking about going home to Oklahoma! Glenn Powell just got tricked by Daisy Edgar-Jones? Here’s a song about how men are easy to fool! It’s time to drive into the eye of the storm? Que up some lyrics about storm chasing! Even though this type of literal-minded storytelling is par for the course in that genre of music, it is incredibly grating here, as if the studio only expects idiots to show up. It also doesn’t help that the songs are generally annoying.
Even the spectacle disappoints despite some thunderous sound design replicating the swirling and destruction. The filmmakers seem to think that working with state-of-the-art CGI is enough of a reason not to create action sequences that feel creative and intense. Yet the effects aren’t impressive even with that technology at their disposal. In the third act, this aspect fares better since the chaos also revolves around numerous civilians in harm’s way, with our heroes urgently scrambling to keep everyone safe. There is flying debris and a sense of otherwise nonexistent jeopardy, first at a rodeo and then inside a small movie theater. Watching characters drive into environments dominated by special effects without actually doing much loses its appeal fast. In the final stretch, there is genuine escalating tension with thought put into the characters’ locations and the orchestrated destruction, leaving one wondering what could have been if the same care had gone into the first two-thirds.
Part of that problem is because Twisters, which feels like a carbon copy of the original right down to romantic triangles, rival chasers, and overcoming trauma, comes across as generic far beyond this series. These cardboard characters operate under the simplest of motivations, once again, as if the entire screenplay was written by a committee plugging in whatever beats would play best to mainstream viewers. The result is stale, which is also not helped by the fact that Glenn Powell is trying too hard to be charming, mugging for the camera every chance he gets. In contrast, Daisy Edgar-Jones’ character is consistently defined by a traumatic incident in the prologue, giving no room to express any real personality. There is no point getting into the specifics regarding the names of these characters or the supporting ensemble; everyone’s charisma and talent are sucked into the same tornado. As for the film itself, it sure does suck.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com
