Basically… an ex-storm chaser is pulled back into that chaotic world but finds a lot more than she bargained for, especially as Oklahoma suffers a disastrous outbreak of tornadoes.
In TWISTERS, Kate Cooper (Daisy Edgar-Jones) has a novel concept for dismantling tornadoes; she just needs a big grant to make it work and clinch her Ph.D. But when the field experiment goes catastrophically wrong, she retreats to New York City where her friend Javi (Anthony Ramos) finds her five years later–with a proposal. He needs an expert storm-reader like Kate to make his tornado-mapping business a reality.
Against her will, Kate heads back to Oklahoma, where Javi’s team of professionals (including the standoffish Scott [played by future Superman David Corenswet]) mixes with Tyler Owens (Glen Powell) and his ragtag crew of misfits. Friendly banter between Kate and Tyler leads to the two teaming up to solve a critical problem: making Kate’s experiment work before a colossal tornado destroys yet another town. Because conditions are right and storms are brewing…
Daisy Edgar-Jones delivers a strong performance as Kate, carrying the burden of her life’s work going badly awry; that said, her scenes carry an emotional charge that isn’t quite matched by Powell’s easy-going, charming and too-good-to-be-true Owens. A former bull rider who quit after a fall, he turned to meteorology and became expert enough to understand Kate’s notes, which… okay. Powell delivers all that the story asks of him but maybe it could have asked for more.
Nevertheless, the two have pretty good chemistry and avoid the trap of going too far too soon.
Maura Tierney is a standout as Kate’s mom Cathy, who farms her property solo and misses her brilliant daughter. She provides an empathetic counterweight to Kate’s emotional turbulence, a task Owens takes over when they decide to make her concept a reality. Ramos is also solid as Javi, her friend from back in the day, who is keeping secrets of his own from Kate even as he shares her particular anguish.
No review would be complete without mentioning the elaborate special effects and lengthy set pieces. They rival the original TWISTER, with a nod to the drive-in-eating tornado scene and a cameo by a piece of tech viewers will recognize, though there are certainly new wrinkles: a tornado ablaze with burning oil, two “twin” cyclones, a couple of genuine monsters hidden inside torrential rain… there are plenty of variations to please tornado fans.
All in all, the story by Joseph Kosinski/screenplay by Mark L. Smith (with a credit given to “based on characters created by Michael Crichton and Anne-Marie Martin”–even though no original characters appear or are named in the movie) delivers what moviegoers want in a summer blockbuster. There’s romance, action, adventure, a few twists, and loads of tornadoes. If you like movies like this, you’ll like this movie.
I gave it a C+ because it’s a worthwhile summer blockbuster, but it’s not going to remake the cinematic landscape of Summer 2024. In my humble opinion…
Final Grade: C+
