Twisters is a Lightning Bolt of Old-School Blockbuster Energy

Why would they make a sequel to Twister? That was the resounding question when Lee Isaac Chung’s sequel to Jan de Bont’s 1996 disaster movie was first announced. Sure, the original Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton-led movie was good, dumb, popcorn fun that made particularly impressive strides in VFX, but it didn’t exactly lend itself to a franchise.

So it’s wise that Chung, in crafting his follow-up with screenwriter Mark. L Smith (based on a story by Joseph Kosinski), decided to forego any “legasequel” or “requel” nonsense by delivering a movie that has all the spirit and ‘90s energy of the original, but a wholly new story and cast. It’s that cast, plus Chung’s impressive handle on breathtakingly tense setpieces, that elevates Twisters into one of the best displays of blockbuster spectacle this year.

Twisters follows Kate Cooper (Daisy Edgar-Jones), a meteorologist who left behind her storm-chasing days after a devastating encounter with a tornado resulted in the deaths of her boyfriend and friends. But she’s dragged back into that world by the only other surviving member of the incident, Javi (Anthony Ramos, playing the annoying sidekick well), who recruits her to help test a cutting-edge storm tracking system. The job naturally brings them head-to-head with a team of rowdy, salt-of-the-earth storm chasers led by the flashy Tyler Owens (Glen Powell), who has turned storm-chasing into fodder for internet fame. Much like the first film, sparks fly and Kate and Tyler become an unlikely team, using their storm-chasing prowess to test out Kate’s the experimental technology Kate was developing to disrupt tornadoes before she abandoned the idea.

One of the recurring slogans Tyler and his team shout to each other, as they recklessly chase storms without little more than but grit, spit, and a couple of hastily installed harnesses, is “If you feel it, chase it!” That’s easily the mantra by which Chung’s Twisters operates. It’s a film powered more by vibes and movie-star charisma than a rock-solid story. The first half, which takes extensive pains to establish Kate’s lingering trauma before saddling her with Javi’s uptight team of professional storm chasers (including future-Superman star David Corenswet as a stunningly unlikable business memo in a suit), is admittedly a bit of a chore to get through. Kate, whom Edgar-Jones lends a kind of quiet grace, is not that interesting of a character to revolve the movie around, and Javi’s team of suits are all instantly forgettable — Chung doesn’t even bother giving most of them personalities to being with.

But none of that matters, because it’s all just building up to the rock-star entrance of Tyler, who storms into the movie like a whirlwind of rakish charisma and boy-next-door charm. If there was any question that Powell was a movie star, Twisters seals it. The movie would not work nearly as well without him. The main weakness lies in its lead, Daisy Edgar-Jones, whose bland prettiness is constantly outshined by Powell’s megawatt smile. However, when they get paired up halfway through the movie, it’s like a bolt of lightning.

Tyler’s entire team is just as colorful as him. There’s Nope’s Brandon Perea as a hyped-up videographer, a cool-as-hell Sasha Lane looking at home as his drone operator, Katy O’Brian as a rough-around-the-edges mechanic, Tunde Adebimpe as his one nebbish scientist, and Harry Hadden-Paton offering some comic relief as the nervous journalist shadowing Tyler. The movie’s main pitfall is that all these characters are given precious little screen time and even fewer lines, despite all being so instantly likable. A sharper script would have sidelined Javi’s team entirely and found a way to pair Edgar-Jones with Powell from the jump. But, perhaps in an attempt to set itself apart from the original, Twisters somewhat shoots itself in the foot by withholding its best characters — losing that one earthy element of the original that it should’ve maintained.

Thankfully, the film’s turning point — and the start of Tyler and Kate’s partnership — is one of the most spectacular cinematic set pieces of the year. A tense sequence where Tyler and Kate are caught in the throes of a tornado that has suddenly set down on a small town, the first big setpiece of Twisters rivals the kind of high-intensity suspense of a Mission: Impossible sequence thanks to Chung’s dedication to using a combination of practical and computer effects. The stakes are high, but the action is intimate — elevating the setpiece from simply being windy CGI noise.

Chung, whose Oscar-nominated Minari was an elegiac vision of rural America, brings that same love of Americana to Twisters, which, while glossier and more subdued than the original, has a keen eye for the small-town victims of natural disasters. Chung’s camera lingers on the people picking up their lives from the rubble, and cinematographer Dan Mindel plays up the warm, naturally-lit beauty of rural America. Chung’s vision grounds Twisters’ more absurd moments, giving the tornadoes’ devastation gravitas and weight. Yes, there are silly scenes where Perea gets a little too excited about twin tornadoes, and even more unreasonably excited over shooting rockets, but Twisters still takes its stakes slightly more seriously than its predecessor.

At times, it’s easy to miss the dumb fun of the original Twister, which offered us flying cows (and characters obtusely pointing out the flying cows). But Twisters is thankfully a different beast — a sequel that more than lives up to the spectacle and earnest blockbuster spirit of the original. It captures a feeling of big setpieces and bigger emotions. And sometimes, all you can do is chase it.

Twisters opens in theaters July 19.