The film follows retired storm chaser Kate Carter, played by Daisy Edgar-Jones (“Fresh,” “Where the Crawdads Sing”), who’s recruited back into the field by her friend Javi, played by Anthony Ramos (“In the Heights,” “Dumb Money”), to help with his new storm tracking business. While assisting him, she meets famous internet storm tracker and self-proclaimed “Tornado Wrangler” Tyler Owens, played by Glenn Powell (“Anyone But You,” “Top Gun: Maverick”), who takes a more cowboy approach to the storm tracking business, leading the two of them to butt heads amid the summer Midwest Tornado season.
For director Lee Isaac Chung (“Minari,” “Munyurangabo”) to go from making small scale dramas to a special effects summer blockbuster like this might seem like a big leap, but the building blocks of “Twisters” have much more in common with his previous works than you’d think. At its heart, it's a character piece that thrives off the chemistry between Powell, Edgar-Jones, and Ramos. The trio are fantastic together, crackling with energy every moment they’re together. It’s a wonderful back and forth, and writers Mark L. Smith (“The Boys in the Boat,” “The Revenant”) and Joseph Kosinski (“Tron: Legacy,” “Top Gun: Maverick”) combine the kind of interplay and charm one might normally find in a rom-com with the disaster movie structure to great effect.
The trio really runs away with everything, funneling the science and thrills through their characters. It’s not just showcasing the fascination with storms and the destruction of them, but it's showcasing it through the experiences of Kate, Javi, and Tyler that make it. The surrounding ensemble cast is also great, rounded out with the likes of Katy O’Brian (“Love Lies Bleeding,” “The Mandalorian”), Sasha Lane (“American Honey,” “Loki”), Brandon Perea (“The OA,” “Nope”), Harry Hadden-Paton (“The Crown,” “Downton Abbey”), David Corenswet (“The Politician,” “Pearl”), and Tunde Adebimpe (“The Girlfriend Experience,” “Strange Planet”). They’re full of big smiles and personalities that fit neatly into the 90s disaster movie personas with great effect, with Lane, Perea, and O’Brian stealing each moment.
Cinematographer Dan Mindel (“Mission Impossible III,” “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”) and Chung make the film's wide vistas work as a celebration of the beauty of midwestern America, with plenty of sweeping vistas and gorgeously constructed moments throughout. It’s a truly beautiful film to watch, with large scale destruction pulled off with a mixture of fantastic digital and practical effects work. It feels real, but doesn’t sacrifice its playfulness, with plenty of bits of humor from Tyler and playfulness with the destruction, including one moment involving a movie theater, a tornado, and a screening of the 1931 “Frankenstein” film that will undoubtedly be the highlight of the adventure.
Couple the gorgeous cinematography with a startlingly beautiful score from Benjamin Wallfisch (“A Cure for Wellness,” “Blade Runner 2049”) and you have a film that fully embraces the energy provided from its intersection between midwestern culture and scientific nerdiness. It’s a lively and endearing crossroads that helps to foster an understanding between two sides of American life that are normally at odds. It also helps to smooth over some of the film’s more predictable and cliche disaster movie plot elements.
“Twisters” is a shockingly fun and just plain fantastic time at the movies. As a character yells in the third act, “We have to get everyone into the movie theater!” If that was Chung and company’s central idea behind the film, its resulted in a thoroughly entertaining disaster flick that never forgets to be exceedingly charming and packed to the gills with lovable characters and a gorgeous portrait of midwestern American culture and landscapes. It, pun entirely intended, just might blow you away. 4.5/5
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