‘Twisters’ review: Dir. Lee Isaac Chung (2024)

In 1996 Jan de Bont’s Twister presented audiences with an action-packed and heartfelt story of tornado chasers, Jo (Helen Hunt) and Bill (Bill Paxton). Although Twister didn’t reinvent the blockbuster, its sheer sepatacle captured the imagination of audiences, and has amassed a fond following in the intervening years. Now, almost thirty years later, Minari director Lee Isaac Chung is reviving the property with Twisters. 

Neither a straight sequel, nor reboot, Twisters falls somewhere in between as it tells of retired tornado-chaser and meteorologist Kate (Daisy Edgar-Jones) as she is persuaded to return to Oklahoma to work with a new team and new technologies. Twisters opens with a mighty bang, joining a young Kate and her research team, which includes Javi (Anthony Ramos). The pair, along with several others, are experimenting ways to ‘tame a tornado.’ This venture is a bust, and the shame of events causes Kate to stop her research. Chung begins as he means to go on as this first sequence is a harrowing portrayal of just how deadly tornadoes can be. The action is suitably frenetic, matched by the camerawork, and sucks the viewer into the eye of life as a storm chaser. The trauma of the ordeal weighs almost as heavily on the audience as it does Kate and without necessarily meaning too; Chung delivers some masterful moments of pure horror. 

After this mesmerising opening, Twisters jumps forward five years. Kate now has a desk job, but is drawn back into life chasing tornadoes when Javi comes calling with some ground-breaking new technologies and ideas. Her recruitment eerily mirrors the enrolment of Ellen Ripley in James Cameron’s Aliens, with Kate a distorted interpretation of the character. Juggling her innate talent to judge storms with her dread of further disaster, Edgar-Jones has a lot of heavy emotions holding her down. This, in places, makes it harder to swallow her more carefree and jovial side that is brought out by Tornado Wrangler Tyler (Glen Powell), but Edgar-Jones persists and the pair have an easy spark. It’s not quite as electric as that of Hunt and Paxton, but as a modern reworking, they mostly hold together. 

Whereas Twister hinged upon the reunion of Jo and Bill, Twisters is less invested in its central couple. Although there is definitely a strong undercurrent of romance, it takes the backseat, placing the focus on Kate, with Tyler merely the window dressing. Powell is his ever charismatic self and Twisters bursts to life whenever he’s on screen. Upon first meeting him, Tyler is full of bold, brass hillbilly bravado, exactly the type of character that has helped Powell make a name for himself, but as the film progresses, Tyler is allowed to show his more serious and softer side. Rounding out the cast are a multitude of up and comers. From Anthony Ramos as Kate’s former friend, to Katy O’Brian, Sasha Lane, Daryl McCormack, and Kiernan Shipka. This cast is easily as stacked as the original. 

Chung ensures that the action ups the stakes and the tornado sequences are far more effective due to Chung’s refusal to shy away from the danger of the weather phenomena. These twisters are hungry and ferocious, and their devastation adds a much thicker sombre air. The messages about freak weather and the reasoning behind them presents further cause for concern, making Twisters an action-packed thrill ride that offers food for thought. 

Fans of the original will find plenty of callbacks, with big chunks of the plot reworked and transposed in. At times this move treads very close to rehashing, but is different enough that Chung just about gets away with it. Overall with Twisters, Lee Isaac Chung manages to traverse the stormy skies of the murky requel, creating a film that is perfectly suited to entertaining audiences en masse. A solid continuation of stories about storm chasers, but whether its popularity can sustain itself as well as Jan de Bont’s movie remains to be seen. 

Twisters is out in cinemas now.