High-Octane
Summary
Twisters is hardly classic cinema, but it feels like a 90’s disaster movie and I mean that as a compliment; it has an appealing cast, lots of destruction and some heartfelt moments making it an entertaining few hours that deserves to be seen on as big a screen as possible.
Plot: Haunted by a devastating encounter with a tornado, Kate Cooper gets lured back to the open plains by her friend, Javi, to test a groundbreaking new tracking system. She soon crosses paths with Tyler Owens, a charming but reckless social-media superstar who thrives on posting his storm-chasing adventures. As storm season intensifies, Kate, Tyler and their competing teams find themselves in a fight for their lives as multiple systems converge over central Oklahoma.
Review: I wasn’t particularly excited about seeing Twisters as it just looked like a retread of the first movie and also I’m already sick of hearing Glen Powell say “If you FEEL it”.
I figured it would at least be fun to see it in IMAX, so we are just back from from the screening. Although there weren’t much in the way of surprises I had a good time with Twisters and it felt like an entertaining throwback to 90’s tentpole movies. It’s the perfect Summer blockbuster in that respect where it’s got plenty of spectacle, with explosions and destruction occurring regularly.
Glen Powell can play characters like Tyler Owens in his sleep as he does get a bit typecast as the smug rogue with a heart of gold, but he is good at it and it’s hard not to take to him as he does have that star power. What I didn’t know before going in is that one of the other cast members is the new Superman, David Corenswet who I’ve never seen in anything before. Within seconds I understood why James Gunn had cast him as he really stands out on screen and I think he just might be an excellent Man of Steel.
Kiernan Shipka plays our lead Addy who is essentially suffering from PTSD after a science project went very wrong costing the lives of several people. She moves away to New York, but as there is a tornado outbreak occurring in Oklahoma she is called back by her old friend Javi (Anthony Ramos). He thinks she can help complete what she was trying to achieve years before while saving lives in the process. The story then involves Addy, Javi and Tyler chasing tornadoes while Addy also tries to come to terms with her past.
I found this sequel had arguably more heart than the first movie (although nobody beats Paxton – R.I.P.) and I wasn’t expecting to be emotionally involved with the characters; I ended up liking Addy, Tyler and Javi with Scott (Corenswet) behaving more like Homelander than Superman at some points.
At 2 hours you maybe could have chopped a couple of minutes off just to make the pacing tighter, but it’s certainly never boring and the effects are faultless; at times you really feel like you are in the thick of the storms and there is a rather large bodycount too. It looks and sounds huge in IMAX and is the most fun I’ve had at a movie theatre for some time.
Overall, Twisters is hardly groundbreaking cinema, but it’s a worthy sequel with an appealing cast and plenty of destruction to keep us action fans happy. They could have maybe trimmed some of the runtime, but it’s still a fun old-school Summer blockbuster that’s worth seeing on the big screen.