There is much to admire in TWISTERS, the >not<-sequel to TWISTER. The way the science of tornadoes is woven into the dialogue with a minimum of clunky exposition. The fine performance from Daisy Edgar-Jones as a meteorologist on a mission to stop tornadoes before they can devastate communities. Maura Tierney as her mother who has a glint in her eye about her daughter’s genius. Glenn Powell as the self-proclaimed tornado wrangler with a, ahem, dirt-eating grin. Mostly, though, it’s the awe-inspiring views of just what a tornado is as it looms in the distance before pouncing on its unpredictable path through pastureland and populaces. Alas, none of these elements quite come together in a narrative that lives up to the individual elements. Instead, it is a smorgasbord of evil capitalists, helpless townsfolk, and lord help us all, an airport ending. Yes, it’s a spoiler. No, I’m not going to apologize.
Edgar-Jones is Kate, a graduate student with a preternatural ability to predict where a tornado will form and then the path it will take. When we first meet her, she and her team are hot on the trail of a tornado on which to test her hypothesis. That would be absorbing enough moisture from its funnel cloud to kill a tornado. Unfortunately, the weather doesn’t send her the little tornado she wants. Instead, it’s a very big one that takes a toll on her team and sends Kate out of the field and into a desk job in New York. But her destiny is not about to leave her there. No, one of her old team, Javi (Anthony Ramos) shows up with his latest idea. Take 3D pictures of a tornado in order to understand the mechanics of its genesis that still elude science, and thereby find a way to fight them effectively. Kate demurs, until the need to save lives kicks in during a once-in-a-generation profusion of twisters in her home state of Oklahoma. Soon, she’s back in the field and competing with a different kind of profusion: storm-chasers with internet shows who laugh at danger and the scientists who want to study, not exploit, the tornadoes.
First of all, there no cows twisting in the vortex this time out. There is a doughty chicken who stole my heart, and gave us a moment of pure, CGI entertainment, but his appearance is brief. For the rest there is Tyler (Powell), the cocksure tornado wrangler who live streams his exploits in the suck zone and sells branded souvenirs to his fans. He takes one look at Kate as they gather with the other storm chasers to wait for the next storm and begins to pitch the most annoying sort of woo at her. Demeaning woo. Woo that assumes she will immediately succumb to his manly charms because she has nothing else to do. Yes, he’s handsome. He’s also annoying. But with a meet-cute rom-com, you know that will change, and if that transition had shown any spark of originality, I would not have missed that chicken so much.
Instead, they compete for each tornado (why such a large phenomenon doesn’t provide enough for both of them, and the other chasers is never explained), and one-up each other with clever repartee. They also stop when tornadoes hit in order to help the locals who have neither civil authorities to tell them what to do, nor the knowledge themselves to do what do before, during and after a twister despite having lived their whole lives in Tornado Alley. Sure, the film throws in an obnoxious tourist who gets what he deserves for being difficult as the sirens sound the alarm, but does the resident population really need to be told to seek shelter and stay down when the alarm sounds? By strangers?
Sigh.
Edgar-Jones is mightily appealing as she goes from bright-eyed enthusiasm to the dead eyes of PTSD while maintaining the dignity of knowing she is the smartest person in the room. And the one with the biggest heart. It is doubly irksome to have a fine performance wasted in a film that really doesn’t require, or deserve, it. Powell is pleasing as the beefcake eye-candy, even if the writing of his character is uneven. As for the rag-tag teams each has, they are textbook caricatures well played but hardly revelatory. Ditto Ben (Harry Hadden-Paton), the English reporter who is wary of puddles and screaming his way through doing a story on Tyler’s exploits that include shooting fireworks into a tornado’s funnel. Why is Tyler adding pyrotechnics to nature’s fury? User request on social media.
Now we come to the special effects. They are terrific, and terrifically scary. It’s not just danger whipping along with those 200mph winds, it’s death as oil rigs whoosh by and water towers topple, the latter a little too on cue. More startling and satisfying is watching the screen of an old-fashioned movie house blow out the original FRANKENSTEIN leaving a perfectly framed view the twister coming to kill the audience. Director Lee Isaac Chung, last seen directing the gems of a character study, MINARI, has a keen understanding of how to keep an audience on edge with his focus on the small moments. Will that clever screw device in Tyler’s pickup keep it anchored? Will someone be able to keep his or her boot wedged just so in order to stay earthbound? He also know just how to frame well as the wow moments when someone is suddenly whipped into the atmosphere in the blink of an eye.
Part of the trick to making a spectacle of this type succeed is to inject an element of fun as we watch engaging characters maneuver their way to safety and true love. TWISTERS stumbles mightily in that respects even as it fills the screen with Mother Nature at her most savage and indifferent. At least the chicken was diverting.
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