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Twisters Shakes Up the Legacy-Sequel

A rather depressing new subgenre in Hollywood, the legacy-sequel is rarely done in an interesting way. For a few months now I’ve been seeing that trailer for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, a movie already deeply dull because it appears entirely built on nostalgia -bringing back just about every character and set-piece, playing a slow moody version of one of the film’s most famous musical sequences, and overall  just looking like it brings nothing new to the table. And it is indicative of the general approach to these projects of the past few years with very few exceptions.
But Twisters, directed by Lee Isaac Chung, does the comparatively bold thing of not having any real tie to the movie it is ostensibly a sequel to. There is no appearance by anybody from 1996’s Twister, no kind of a continuity or lore forced upon it, it’s merely a new movie with the similar basic premise of following storm chasers looking to disrupt tornadoes in the American South-west. As such it feels quite fresh for what it is, requiring no homework on a twenty-eight year old movie and letting its own blockbuster thrills and storytelling sell itself -qualities that fortunately are valued by both its architects, and by early metrics, its audience.
Chung, whose previous film was the excellent family drama Minari, seems like an inappropriate choice to helm a big-budget disaster movie, until you consider things a little bit more closely. A movie about tornadoes necessitates both the kind of rural geographic contours and the empathy with displaced communities that Minari had in spades. And it doesn't hurt that Chung was allowed to bring a little bit of his own personal touch over to the film, through little moments of serene meditation, grounded atmosphere, and awe about nature, while adapting his instincts sharply to the more propulsive pace and energy required of the blockbuster format.
He also pinpoints something the earlier Twister movie really lacked, and that is a focus on the devastation of tornadoes. While Jan de Bont cast them as monstrous entities, Chung sees them as the ultimate violent power of nature; and he cares a lot about how they impact communities. His three protagonists are all challenged at various points on how much this motivates them in their work chasing and studying these harrowing typhoons. Kate (Daisy Edgar-Jones) is introduced as someone following the thrill, with scientific curiosity and an ostensible desire to do good in the back pocket, but exhilaration is her chief emotion ...until it leads to tragedy. And in the primary storyline, set years later when her old friend Javi (Anthony Ramos) recruits her off of her New York meteorologist job to test a new type of tornado scanner with the team he is in business with, she meets another seemingly reckless thrill-focussed storm chaser in popular YouTuber “Tornado Wrangler” Tyler Owens (Glen Powell) -representing to her everything she now despises about the hobby. But Tyler, for his part, isn’t quite the buffoon she perceives him to be, while Javi -outwardly more professional and ethical- may be compromised by his capitalist associations.
There’s no Cary Elwes here though as the cartoon unscrupulous villain with the corny accent (though Edgar-Jones’ goes in and out); Chung likes and is interested in each of his characters here, and particularly hones in well on Powell’s charisma to counteract the more obnoxious aspects of his character and ragtag crew. I’ve stated before that Powell has a very old-school movie star charm, and it is vividly on display in this movie as it balances its action set-pieces with a low-key opposites-attract kind of romance between Tyler and Kate, which simultaneously feels more cliché and more honest than the one from the first movie. The dynamic works better in comedy than when it tries to be serious -though that may be due to a fairly dull handling of both Kate's backstory and the principal theme around conquering fear, which is a fairly good motivating idea -but one that is not fleshed out nearly enough.
The moral relativism is also a bit trite on the surface, particularly that judgemental assumption on Kate's part that Tyler and his gang have no real empathy for the victims of tornado alley or are at best only passively concerned. There is a very clear class subtext embedded in this where Kate, Javi and their team all being educated meteorologists and engineers (and implicitly from big cities far away from the risk of tornadoes) turn their noses up at what seem to be the unsophisticated, rowdy rednecks. There's a lot of fairly easy stereotyping to the characters of this movie, from the corporate drones to the obnoxious influencers, up to and including a pasty awkward British reporter (Harry Hadden-Paton) riding along with Tyler, who is entirely unequipped for the adrenaline of the endeavour. Going this route with the character types is a clearly tactical decision, an effort to emulate very traditional blockbuster mores and conventions in the vein of Top Gun: Maverick -no coincidence, Joseph Kosinski has a story credit on Twisters. Smart performances from a fun supporting cast including Brandon Perea, Sasha Lane, and Katy O'Brian allow it to work some of the time; but in other places it can be laboured, especially in how bluntly it comes down on the side of the cowboys.
Coming down just as hard are the tornadoes, wreaking immense havoc and inspiring considerable terror. Chung treats them like the shark in Jaws, building them up through sustained tension, utilizing allusion in their attacks (Jurassic Park is also a model, in the dichotomy between the heroes being awestruck by the lighter twisters and petrified by the lethal ones). The original film was made in that time when CGI was the hot new toy in Hollywood, and like many of its contemporaries, the effects have aged poorly. The twisters in Twisters then, for as outrageous as they get, look better and more threatening -though Chung is smart about how he uses them, occasionally for big extravaganzas of destruction, but more often for simply the horror of their ground effects: tossing trees and vehicles in every direction, scooping up people even from spaces of perceived safety. The viciousness of the storm and the helplessness it evokes is palpable. The scenes are also just really strongly constructed, the tornado often depicted as chasing the protagonists, always just a little out of harm's way. Even buildings are not impenetrable, as seen in the fairly compelling high-stakes climax that yes, involves a movie theatre.
Sequences like this wouldn't work if the movie didn't effectively channel some love for its world and respect for the trauma tornadoes inflict on those communities. Chung, unlike de Bont, comes from a place of first-hand experience with these places and threats, and can relate that nature and atmosphere with great authenticity -even with a script so precisely calculated. And it's just that sort of quality that positions him well within the blockbuster movie space. He brings humanity to the artificiality of Twisters. And he can deliver credibly on its disaster flick obligations as well, making for a pretty good and perfectly upstanding summer movie.

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