Twisters Is A Solid Popcorn Movie, But Don’t Expect Anything New

Truth be told, if Twisters had a different name, I’d feel no different about the cinematic experience; the special effects were great and the acting was strong. As a disaster flick, it’s a solid outing that will have you white-knuckling through its more intense sequences.

As a sequel, Twisters is too little, too late.

If you want the quick rundown, here it is: there are tornadoes. Enemies become friends, and friends become enemies.

Oh, and Daisy Edgar-Jones is haunted by her past, but her enemy-turned-friend (Glen Powell) helps her overcome her tornado-based traumas because they’re actually not so different after all.

I previously mentioned that the original Twister was great because it wasn’t really a disaster movie that played it totally straight, but rather a rom-com with disaster movie trappings. My biggest fear was that Twisters would play it straight and take itself too seriously.

To my surprise, it’s actually somewhere in the middle.

There’s a natural chemistry between Glen Powell and Daisy Edgar-Jones that cannot be overstated, but at the same time their characters don’t have any history with each other, or pent up emotions based on past interpersonal conflicts to drive the story. Their separate conflicting backstories converge to make for a decent romantic through line, but like most cinematic romances, things move too quickly to the point where it’s never truly believable.

In Twister, Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt have a ton of emotional baggage that needs to be addressed. The tension between their two characters, Bill and Jo, is the primary source of conflict, and they have to overcome their differences throughout the film so they can achieve a common goal. Their animosity toward one another is based on their history, which makes for an engaging narrative, and most of their past squabbles are alluded to through dialogue.

Twisters, on the other hand, takes a different approach because Daisy Edger-Jones’s Kate Carter meets Glen Powell’s Tyler Owens for the first time in the film.

In order to move things along, they have to establish an adversarial relationship, really drive the point home that they don’t like each other, overcome those differences and reconcile, and move forward as friends in a very short amount of time.

To me, this is where Twisters loses its plot. Like a Shakespearean romance, the relationship dynamic has so much urgency that it took me straight out of the film because it felt rushed.

Remember how intense the romance was in Romeo and Juliet? That entire tragedy took place over the course of four days. Maybe this kind of story structure makes sense in that context because Romeo and Juliet are both teenagers who let their impulses and fragile mental states get the best of them, but we’re talking about full grown adults in Twisters.

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But perhaps my biggest gripe about Twisters has to be the callbacks they make to the original film.

There’s a movie theater scene that’s clearly paying homage to the drive-in scene from Twister. There are rival storm chasers with questionable motives, but they try to resolve their differences instead of using that adversarial energy to create more conflict. There’s even an updated version of Dorothy in the opening sequence to let the viewer know that this film takes place in the same universe.

You know what was missing from Twisters, though? Flying cows. All I’m saying is if that you want to pay tribute to the OG film in so many ways, there could have at least been one flying cow.