Review: Twisters

Director:  Lee Isaac Chung

Stars:  Daisy Edgar-Jones, Anthony Ramos, Glen Powell

Sat in a near-capacity, abnormally well-behaved multiplex screening for Twisters, the woman next to me was as good as gold throughout the movie. Didn’t touch her phone, chose wisely when to rustle her snacks… until she sat bolt upright and shrieked, “A CHICKEN!” when one quite suddenly appeared on screen. And, you know what, I get where she was coming from. Because the surprise appearance of a hen in close-up was about the most arresting moment in this rizzless, sexless, thrill-averse, ITV2-ready ride through the wheat fields of Oklahoma.

Nostalgia can rehabilitate a film like nothing else. Joseph Kosinski seems acutely aware of this, having used the emotional memory of actually-quite-bad ’80s action flick Top Gun to power his superior Maverick to glory two summers ago. Now he’s back at it with a story credit on Twisters, successor to Jan De Bont’s silly and serviceable (at best) mid-’90s storm chasers flick (a film that seemingly existed to milk the T-Rex chase sequence from Jurassic Park but with a different VFX foe clipping at the heels of a pick-up).

Picking Twister out of the litter of mostly-forgotten blockbusters sends up something of a red flag, suggesting any-and-all one-and-done titles are soon to be regurgitated into a cinema near you. Hell, with superhero movies finally dying an overdue death, Hollywood’s gotta secure their lack-of-imagination somewhere. Drafting in Lee Isaac Chung to direct had the potential to be a low-key masterstroke. Get a different spin on the Hollywood disaster movie. But a few handsome shots of scenery and the odd character beat aside, Chung is wholly swept up in the machine on this one, and ultimately proves a bit of an awkward fit.

Wet lettuce leaf Daisy Edgar-Jones is teenage overachiever and storm-chaser Kate Carter, who fatefully brings about the deaths of most of her friends one tragic stormy day while trying to test her latest barn-born science experiment. Traumatised by leading most of those near and dear to her into a category five tornado, Kate swaps Oklahoma for New York and we catch-up with her five years later when creepy old pal and corporate stooge Javi (Anthony Ramos) convinces her – somehow – to return to her roots with him.

Having vaguely suggested that tornadoes are gathering in the Sooner State with sentient malevolence, Twisters careens Kate and Javi into YouTubing weatherjock Tyler Owens (Glen Powell), a cocksure showman with a team of likeable thrill-seekers in tow. The two camps race one another to the latest cyclones, Javi eager to test out some new military-grade equipment he has his hands on under the pretext of helping to study nature’s most maverick storms. Initially gun-shy following her traumatic experiences, Kate finds herself bit-by-bit succumbing to Tyler’s charm, switching teams in the race to prevent catastrophic loss of life.

When Twisters weathers various storms on the ground in built-up areas, it generates some invigorating immediacy. A mid-film attempt to hunker down in an empty swimming pool is the best of these by far. More often, however, Chung’s film has its characters driving ceaselessly through identical fields, where they often feel wholly divorced from the big bad weather digitally painted into deep background. Twisters lacks an urgency or connection between what’s happening in the cabs of these cars and the chaos outside. For a movie about adrenaline junkies, it’s far from compelling. Knuckles will not be whitened.

This is, in fairness, about par for the course with Jan De Bont’s first movie (occasionally nodded to here; this is effectively a full-scale reboot and not a sequel of consequence). Kosinski may have worked strange alchemy with Top Gun: Maverick, but there’s little of the same juice here. Edgar-Jones flounders throughout, shouldered with a lead role she doesn’t seem equipped to make all that engaging. The star power is Powell, but he’s supporting, and the imbalance is felt whenever he strides into frame and takes over the movie, making Edgar-Jones and Ramos feel small by comparison. And it’s probably the least substantial of his major roles thus far.

Contradictory feelings swirl whenever the film spins its wheels (which is about half the time). Dawdling asides at rodeos or at the Carter family farm with reserve highlight Maura Tierney as mother dearest suck pace out of the picture. On the other hand, these are the sequences where Chung seems genuinely sure of himself, and which flavour Twisters with some deep-seated Mid Western romanticism. The soundtrack is stuffed with country and western tunes, and leaning into this cultural mindset generates a prideful sense of place and community that the theatrics then decimate. Chung isn’t quite the action set-piece maestro that exec producers like Spielberg might want him to be. His blow-outs blow fast, are occasionally confused and leave little impression in their wake.

And then there’s the infuriating tameness of the film’s romantic leanings. The movie sells the idea of Kate and Tyler as a mismatched pair, it pushes them together. Then, when it comes to the big Hollywood finale (complete with a race to the boarding gate no less!), Twisters fumbles again, not able to muster even a kiss. It’s indicative of a feeling of tentativeness throughout. An unnerving reserve when all of us in the theatre want is for the film to let itself go and give it some oomph.

It all feels, ultimately, a little chicken.