Twisters

I had forgotten how intense the original TWISTER was.  Before watching its long delayed sequel/remake, 2024's TWISTERS,  I rewatched it and had to marvel at how director Jan De Bont created such a tight bit of sustained peril.  Even as it was saddled with a silly sort-of love triangle among the protagonists.  One of the wisest decisions made by director Lee Isaac Chung and screenwriter Mark L. Smith was to jettison any romance.  The traditional kind, anyway.   The characters may eventually connect on some romantic level, but their true love is the thrill of the chase.  Barreling headlong into tornadoes. 

The new film has no direction connection to the the original, other than the presence of "Dorothy" early on.  I read that early imaginings brought back Helen Hunt.  These characters are all new, and generally appealing.  Kate (Daisy Edgar-Jones) watches her meteorology student buds perish during a EF5 wind event.  Years later, she works in an NOAA office in NYC, having long since given up storm chasing.  One of her old chums Javi (Anthony Ramos), the only other survivor of said tornado, has meanwhile worked for a mobile radar company that has developed a scanning system.  He will eventually convince her to join him back in Oklahoma to try it out.

Javi's well funded team is made up of straightlaced, insufferable nerds.  But here comes some competition - storm chaser Tyler Owens (Glen Powell), a good ol' boy from Arkansas who's a YouTube sensation.  His rag tag team resembles the one led by Hunt and Bill Paxton in the first movie.  Does that mean Javi's team are the bad guys? 

TWISTERS recycles much of the original but changes up the sympathies and allegiances among the leads.  Powell has serious charisma, again proving he is a movie star. You might say something cheesy like "He's the real force of nature here."  You'd be right.  Some practical effects of wind and rain are used to simulate the inclement weather.  The CGI is acceptable.  To their credit, Chung and D.P. Dan Mindel shoot on 35mm.  There's a redo of the drive-in movie scene from the first film, set in a theater playing FRANKENSTEIN.  You might rightly wonder how the projector keeps running in the midst of the carnage, beaming images into the sky after the screen and wall behind it are sucked away. 

Smith's screenplay does not attempt to link the onslaught of tornadoes with climate change.  I read this was because no definitive link has been discovered.  The science here is dense and believable enough. 

TWISTERS is sufficiently entertaining, but never achieves the same sinister rhythm as the earlier movie.  It is just as corny.  While there is no overt love story there might be more flirting and (very mild) innuendoes to annoy viewers who hate the mushy stuff.  No kiss either, which I think was a good choice.