REVIEW: Twisters (2024)

Movie Reviews

I’ve never seen Twister. I’ve always been vaguely aware of it, but I don’t tend to like disaster movies because they’re about spectacle and survival rather than characters and their morality. Naturally, I didn’t plan on seeing Twisters for the same reasons and because I didn’t see the original. However, I changed my mind because Regal offered bonus credits to see it, and my friend told me how packed all the showings were. You are free to laugh now. Anyways, I’d like to talk about this movie, for whatever that’s worth, having limited knowledge of the original. 

Kate (Daisy Edgar-Jones) is a scientist interested in using chemical compounds to disrupt tornadoes from within. However, when she loses her boyfriend and two close colleagues, Kate loses all of her self-confidence and drive to chase the storms. Five years later, her friend and former associate Javi (Anthony Ramos, Hamilton, In the Heights) contacts Kate to ask for help tracking storms for his company. This brings her into contact with Tyler Owens (Glen Powell), a YouTuber who rides the storms out for views. However, things are more complicated than they seem. Kate can return to her new, quiet life or be herself and help her friends. 

I was so wrong about Twisters. This movie isn’t incredible, and the leads aren’t groundbreaking representations of the human spirit, but I really enjoyed it. In the beginning, the main dilemma is Kate’s trauma over losing some of her friends in a tornado. I found this difficult to relate to or sympathize with because she and they all chose to be in the storm. It’s not that their deaths aren’t sad, just stupid and avoidable. However, this ends up working really well. Kate has bad survivor’s guilt, and Javi too. They all chose to go out, but Kate was the leader. It was her call. Her goal of disrupting the tornadoes to save people works much better for me than just chasing them to study or for entertainment. That element always drove me away from Twister; it sounds pointless. Not long after Kate joins Javi’s company, Tyler opens her eyes to the suffering of those caught in the storms. If they even live, they lose everything: property, their homes, pets, other people, etc. At this point in the film, the threat becomes tangible and feels much more dire. Kate’s friends are gone, but she doesn’t have to stand by and let the same thing happen to others. 

And Kate isn’t a one-man show, either. When she’s trying to disperse the compound, Tyler and Javi help people take shelter and guide the crowds. It’s not revolutionary stuff, but it’s the stuff I like. So many recent movies have been focused on one hero’s rise, and the supporting cast was just filler or eye candy. I’m looking at you, Star Wars. I’ve missed movies about friendship and teamwork, like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and the real Star Wars. What Kate has to do is important, but if the townspeople die, it’s for nothing anyway. What the others are doing is essential, and you know exactly why they do it, especially Javi. 

Part of what makes this work is the actors. Daisy Edgar-Jones and Glen Powell have good chemistry, and Edgar-Jones also works well with Anthony Ramos. David Corenswet plays Scott, Javi’s associate who acts as a minor antagonist, constantly reminding him to focus on good business and all that. Tyler has his own crew from his YouTube show: Boone (Brandon Perea), Lily (Sasha Lane), Dexter (Tunde Adebimpe), and Dani (Katy O’Brien). Tyler also has a British reporter with him for much of the film, Ben (Harry Hadden-Paton). These characters are all just okay, for the most part. Tyler’s redneck friends initially annoyed me, constantly hooting and hollering about the storms. But they gradually grew on me, just like they do on Kate and even Javi. Now I see this was intentional, and I probably especially didn’t love it because I live around people like this. Ben is actually kind of charming and provides some much-needed humor. Maura Tierney plays Kate’s mom, Cathy. Tierney has a longstanding acting career, but I immediately recognized her as the mother in The Iron Claw. Twisters is directed by Lee Isaac Chung, who I’m not otherwise familiar with. He has directed Minari, Abigail Harm, and, to my surprise, some episodes of The Mandalorian season 3. Try not to hold that last one against him, because Twisters is well-directed both visually and in terms of acting. Although well-rendered shots of artificial storms are exactly what I wasn’t excited to see, they look good. It works. 

However, I might just have the nitpickiest nitpick ever with regards to Twisters: what did they do to Anthony Ramos’ hair? It looks awful! This scraggly mess he has for most of the movie makes him look like a drifter, or perhaps a teenager who defiantly refuses to use a comb. When looking for stills from Twisters, I also quickly learned that Daisy Edgar-Jones is absolutely gorgeous. I chalk this one up to her being a scientist in this movie, not a red carpet starlet. There’s no excuse for what they did to your man’s hair, though. 

On a more serious note, I think Twisters drags at times. Scenes at Kate’s mother’s house go on a little longer than necessary, and this halts the tension of the storms. I get that she needs a pep talk to regain some much-needed self-confidence after a major screw-up. Again, this is pretty basic stuff, but I wonder if there’s a better way to do it without cutting away from the major conflict for so long. 

Twisters isn’t the best movie I’ve seen this year, but it really surprised me. The film has heart, character development, and a genuine moral conflict, all of which I assumed it wouldn’t. This is a disaster movie, but it’s also a drama and a story of self-actualization and the value of making new friends and letting them help you.