Review: ‘Twisters’ blows away the summer competition

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What does anyone want from a summer blockbuster, anyway?

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Good-looking stars, some witty banter, characters you can believe in for a couple of hours. Enough of what the MPAA ratings board calls “intense action and peril” to make you feel you got your money’s worth in adrenaline, but not so much that you feel bludgeoned or pandered to. You don’t want it to be too brainy, or too brainless. Half a brain is about right.

The surprise of summer 2024 is that “Twisters” checks almost every item on that punch list, which is a lot more than a sequel that no one asked for deserves. Die-hard fans of the original 1996 “Twister” may regret that there are no poorly digitized flying cows this time around – refreshingly, the new film avoids nostalgic shout-outs altogether – but they may be too busy dodging airborne trucks, RVs, trolley cars and a movie screen showing the original 1931 “Frankenstein” to notice.

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Where “Twister” was a remarriage story disguised as a disaster film, “Twisters” is largely a rom-com in a wind tunnel. It’s established early that the young meteorologist Kate Carter (Daisy Edgar-Jones) has the same ESP for incoming tornadoes that Bill Paxton had in the first film, which doesn’t prevent tragedy from hitting her team in the field and taking a bunch of fine young actors with it.

Cut to five years later, and Kate is coaxed out of a New York desk job and back to Oklahoma by fellow survivor Javi (Anthony Ramos), who has a new, murkily sponsored radar technology he wants to test out and needs Kate’s nose for wind. One of the changes apparent since 1996 is that the internet and YouTube have created an army of storm-chasing amateur weather “influencers” who get in the professionals’ way, chief among them Tyler Owens (Glen Powell), a preening cowboy who calls himself the “Tornado Wrangler” and has a ragtag crew of hard-living, drone-flying, tattooed misfits.

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Kate’s tightly wound, Tyler’s as loose as a goose. It’s the old story, but a good one when the players bring the stuff, and these two do. Edgar-Jones (“Normal People,” “Where the Crawdads Sing”) has a straightforward, intelligent presence that powers her through the mayhem while letting you see Kate’s residual PTSD; she’s not the F5 force of nature Helen Hunt was in the first film, but the part’s not written that way.

Anyway, the microburst here is her co-star. Powell has been getting hyped as the Next Big Thing all year, and for a reason: He is. Anyone who saw Richard Linklater’s “Hit Man” in its theatrical run (it’s still playing on Netflix, watch already) knows it, and while the romantic chemistry in “Twisters” isn’t as off-the-charts as in that film, it’s pleasurable enough, especially when Tyler dials down the arrogance and Kate dials up the expertise. As an actor, Powell combines wit, confidence and decency in ways that feel more welcome than fresh; he’s a little like Chris Evans with sharper reflexes. Can he do heavy drama? I don’t care. He can do this, and superbly.

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The supporting players don’t represent as deep a bench of “that guy” energy as the 1996 original, which boasted Philip Seymour Hoffman, Cary Elwes, Todd Field, Alan Ruck and more. But the cast does feature such off-Hollywood talents as Katy O’Brian (“Love Lies Bleeding”), Sasha Lane (“American Honey”), Brandon Perea (“Nope”) and a blessedly sane Maura Tierney as Kate’s mom.

I wish I could tell you more about the plot, but do you really need to know? Blah blah blah *science* blah blah blah *polymers* blah blah blah *evil real estate villains.* What you DO need to know: *tornadoes on fire.* Twenty-eight years of improvements in digital effects have made the meteorological cataclysms in “Twisters” bigger, more detailed and scarier than in the first movie. There’s a nighttime rodeo sequence that becomes a terrifying maelstrom of panic and split-second decision-making, and a ride through an exploding gas refinery that delivers on your most fundamental lizard-brain summer-movie needs.

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The difference is that “Twisters” emphasizes the terrible human cost of weather disasters even more than the first film, and there are grace notes of connection in the script by Mark L. Smith and Joseph Kosinski that are brought to life by director Lee Isaac Chung. Chung’s last film was the sweet, handmade Oscar winner “Minari” (2020), and, as is the proper order of events in Hollywood, he has been handed the keys to a megabudget franchise film to see what he can do. Apparently, he can do it all.

“Twisters” isn’t art and doesn’t want to be. Like “Twister,” it’ll never be held up as a classic but will instead be reliably watched for the next 28 years until someone gives us “Twister 3: Maximum Vorticity.”

Provided we’re around, that is. Would it have killed anyone to mention, even in passing, man-made climate change – the reason for the dramatic increase in severe weather both on the screen and in recent reality? Even if director Chung has stated that he didn’t want to insert a lecture into the movie, there’s plenty of room between lecturing and sticking your head in the sand. But I guess the last thing most people want from a summer blockbuster is a reminder of what’s waiting for them when the movie’s over.

RATING: ***1/2 OUT OF FOUR

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