- Director: Lee Isaac Chung
- Screenplay: Mark L. Smith
- Cast: Daisy Edgar-Jones, Glen Powell, Anthony Ramos, Brandon Perea, Maura Tierney, Sasha Lane
- Cinematographer: Dan Mindel
- Editing: Terilyn A. Shropshire
- Score: Benjamin Wallfisch
- Genre: Disaster
- Runtime: 122 minutes
In a Hollywood devoid of original ideas, they’ve plumped to make another movie about tornadoes. In fairness, it’s a major worry in the States so the concept isn’t so ridiculous I guess. This standalone sequel to ‘Twister‘ (1996) sees our leads Kate (Daisy Edgar-Jones), a meteorologist, and Tyler (Glen Powell) a suave ‘tornado wrangler’ and social media star as they both set out to hunt a storm for different reasons. Tyler seeks the thrill (and the YouTube ‘clicks’) that comes with the chase in contrast to Kate, who wants to test a new high-tech device (amusingly nicknamed ‘Dorothy’ in a reference to the gadget in the antecedent film and also the character in ‘The Wizard of Oz‘) that potentially has the power to dissipate a tornado. So of course, she needs to recklessly drive right up to a twister and take readings from it. Sounds like a suicide mission to me. Well, at least she’s not throwing a nuke into the storm and hoping for the best.
There’s a couple of very subtle references to climate change but thankfully this is no lecture on environmental concern; otherwise people would leave the cinema in bored droves. It’s more of a science lesson – one that’s thoroughly enjoyable though. Scientific terms are tossed around a little, but the somewhat confusing jargon should go over your head. We get the gist – they’re bustin’ tornadoes.
Aided by a jaunty country music soundtrack and some top-notch CGI effects of the mighty windstorms, ‘Twisters‘ is entertaining while still retaining an emotional side; whereas the first movie dealt with a couple’s separation, this deals with the loss of loves ones and the devastation the storms wreak on small communities.
A whirlwind of an adventure!
My rating: 7 / 10
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