THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
Since 1996, Twister can be looked at as the ideal disaster film that has been fairly entertaining due to the right balance of logic & reality bending to enjoy. While the likes of 2012 & The Day After Tomorrow don’t match that quality with all due respect, it’s clear how high the expectations have been made that the only solution at that point to make another good film of this kind was a sequel.
PLOT
2024’s Twisters is a standalone story that does not follow any character from the preceding film. Instead, it follows Kate Carter, a meteorologist who now works at a NOAA office. Five years prior, she had a theory on reducing the intensity of tornadoes by launching beads of sodium polyacrylate, which could disrupt them. That backfired and instead caused an EF5 that killed three of her friends that were storm chasing with her: Addy (Kiernan Shipka), Jeb (Daryl McCormack) & Praveen (Nik Dodani). The only other person apart from Kate to survive the event was her fellow colleague Javi. In the story’s present, Javi offers Kate a position with his team of StormPAR to test a new system involving phased array radar. She joins him and his team in Oklahoma alongside Javi's business partner Scott. Before they begin chasing, they encounter a group of storm chasers that vlog their experiences and dub themselves 'Tornado Wranglers'. Led by meteorologist Tyler Owens, his group includes: Boone who does the videography, Lily the drone operator, Dani (Katy O'Brian) the mechanic and Dexter (Tunde Adebimpe) the scientist. Tyler's team is also accompanied by a British journalist named Ben (who is visiting the states to do a piece on storm chasing. Kate has a panic attack setting up the scanners on the first day, but briefly overcomes it on the next when a satellite. She leads StormPAR to get it back to successfully redeploy the scanners before an EF1 tornado emerges into an EF3. When passing through a ravaged Crystal Springs, she sees firsthand that the Wranglers use their merchandise profits to aid tornado victims whereas StormPAR investor Marshall Riggs profiteers off of the company's work to purchased damaged land at low prices. At a rodeo in Stillwater, she comes to understand Tyler's point of view when he shares how mesmerized he was in encountering a tornado as a child and makes his decisions based on facing fears. Both people remain on the same page when taking cover from an EF4. After the tornado passes, Kate reunites with Javi and points out what Riggs is doing, but doesn't think so and rebuttals by blaming her what happened to their friends since her motive was to score a grant at the time. With grief consuming her again, she returns to a farm in Sapulpa where her mother Cathy lives. Tyler visits her and asks why her project didn't work before, only for her to reply she got the prediction wrong on what she was up against that day. With his encouragement, they try again in the project knowing it can still make a difference. The next day, they send the same beads into an EF1 but it doesn't dissipate like they hope. When Javi apologetically gives her a new data scan, she gives a hypothesis that launching silver iodide into the tornado could officially cause disruption. She joins the Wranglers in tracking another tornado in El Reno, but danger peaks when it gets rain wrapped and catches fire after hitting an oil refinery, transforming into a mile-wide EF5 in the process. Javi abandons Scott and StormPAR as a whole when realizing how selfish the company is. With the shelters quickly filling up nearby, Kate and the Wranglers take cover in a theater. Javi joins them after saving Tyler from being trapped by debris. With the theater not having a basement for others to hide in, Kate drives into the tornado to set off the new beads that successfully causes dissipation after a brief struggle. Some time after this, she would plan to return to New York but would resume storm chasing with Tyler when her flight is delayed by a tornado. The film ends through a credits montage in the perspective of Bob's new article, revealing her and Javi joining the Wranglers in starting a new tornado radar business. THOUGHTS
I for one am not crazy for disaster flicks because they can carried away in bending reality and get far too illogical to be entertaining with ideas that would never become possible. Twister has stood out because it’s honestly felt grounded enough to be believable and that is what I wanted with the sequel. I feel like I got just that because Director Lee Isaac Chung was able to craft a whole new intense spectacle that had me glued. It goes without saying tornadoes are a real creations of nature that are dangerous to encounter and the visual effects done to bring them to life was fantastic. It’s one thing to see a pair of twins, but it is another see one engulfed in flames. It goes without saying no cow would survive that storm. Each time the tornado was set in motion, you just knew trouble was among the horizon and that is the perfect reminder that nature can be an enemy. So in this case, this is an effective story because it succeeds in teaching the audience to not only face your fears but also be aware of your surroundings because nature will change in the blink of an eye. With a diverse ensemble, I think the message got the message across. With respect to Maura Tierney playing Cathy, I was quite disappointed it wasn’t the preceding lead. While I was feeling such with Helen Hunt not returning as Jo Harding since the Dorothy V model in the opening confirms both films are in the same fictional timeline, I think the new characters unrelated to her matched the energy the previous cast brought to the table. Daisy Edgar Jones’ Kate was honestly a lot more like Bill Paxton’s Bill because the trauma she’s gone through has caused her to restrain herself from her ambitions. Long before losing her friends, her true motive was to save people in an exponential manner because who wouldn’t want to disrupt tornadoes before casualties pile up. That’s the difference she has from Jo because the trauma was the latter’s motivation and didn’t slow down until someone told her to. But with the right motivation, Kate is able to remember her aspirations and do what she believes is the absolute. She got to do that in badass fashion when she drove to the EF5 on her own. Of course she doesn’t get the chance to redeem herself without said motivation. Anthony Ramos is likable as Javi because he shares the motive in wanting to look out for everyone but doesn’t look back on the how, which makes it his biggest flaw. Because he doesn’t do so, you can mistake him to be as selfish the way David Corenswet presents Scott. Thankfully, he does all the way in proving otherwise when going back for his friend. Like Kate, he is grief stricken with the friends they lost but knows that mistake does not define her, hence going back for her in the end. Personally, the one who truly got through to her was someone she never intended to have part of her life. Glen Powell was awesome as Tyler because his motivation is to take it to the next level when it comes to face his fears. In the process, he inspires others to follow suit because when you look at how Brandon Perea & Sasha Lane portray both Boone & Lily, they are thrill seekers that take part in giving back which I think is pretty damn cool. Tyler is a good match for Kate because apart from an opposites attract due to their different approaches towards danger, they are both the kind of people that find their way to care about others, hence the latter’s call to miss her flight. I’m sure Javi had intimate feelings for her too for similar motives they shared, but he missed his shot by the time he lost their friends and reaching out to her was all he could do in trying to put the past behind him. He doesn’t push himself to put the pieces back together like that because he doesn’t need to and he supports Tyler because he knew exactly what to say, no matter how jealous he was originally. With the work they can do together, the difference makers we ask for can finally come through. The majority of this film made sense, but there were a handful of things that did not story wise. For example, Addy has not right to call Praveen overprotective when that lightning strike defends his perspective. It gets hard to like you when being careless. And would it be hard for Kate’s coworker to tell her it was Javi waiting rather than surprise her and us the audience? Imagine if she was too busy to deal with an average stranger before reuniting with her best friend. Also, wasn’t it crazy how easy it was for Tyler to get the jump on Javi when pursuing the first tornado? It’s not like he had a quiet engine or had a cloaking device so she should’ve been coming a mile away. It then feels absurd for Ben to question if Tyler’s actions are safe because his moniker should make clear it ain’t the safest job/hobby in the world. The big mistake Javi makes is not having someone else from the crew follow the tornado when Kate wants to help. I mean that’s not hard of a decision if they share the same technology compared to the Wranglers. Of all things Tyler could’ve done is be upfront to Kate when wanting to charge the tornado when testing the new model. I can’t even be mad with giving Dani some speaking lines, but it’s kinda pointless she is the one to remind the leads to save civilians when it’s a given they would do that again after the rodeo. Other than that, this movie is totally worthwhile. In short, Twisters is the follow up disaster flick we’ve been waiting to see for its creative take on being an entertaining adventure. If you still love disaster flicks like the predecessor, check this out.
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