‘Twisters’: a disaster film with plenty of thrills but not much realistic value

Action blockbuster Twisters, directed by Lee Isaac Chung, is not exactly a sequel, rather a thinly connected spin-off (pardon the pun) to the original 1996 disaster film Twister.

That earlier film starred Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton in central parental roles, and it suited Gen X’ers like myself who’d look up to these kind of figures in cinema. But of course Gen Z is all about diversity, inclusivity and an ethos that “the older generations aren’t cool” hence the focus is on a bunch of twenty-somethings with the knowledge and skills supposedly akin to Einstein and Amelia Earhart.

Heading into this screening, I carried nostalgia for not only the cast, but for what was – for the mid-1990s –  amazing visual effects and a clever connection to classic cinema, with ‘Dorothy’ being a capsule device containing weather sensors, named after the main character in the The Wizard of Oz. Here in lies the thinly veiled connection where the next generation of ambitious young weather scientists are introduced in the first scene experimenting with their own crudely designed modernised version of ‘Dorothy’. The plot is as simple as they come, with the kids learning as they go, how to “kill” an active tornado to save towns from mass destruction and save lives. But instead of a simple, clever classic cinema connection, this film goes full-belt into naming just about everything it can after a character in The Wizard of Oz, to the point of overload. It borders on stupidity, quite frankly.

Here’s the full synopsis for you. Based on a college research project led by Kate (Daisy Edgar-Jones) with token geeky sidekicks Javi (Anthony Ramos), a tornado-studying exercise doesn’t go to plan (no spoilers). Five years later, the project is picked up again, where Javi recruits the guidance of Kate who has grown into a tornado whisperer of sorts. She can predict tornado behaviour and this time things are more pragmatic since, unlike their maiden attempt, this project has huge funding and uses more advanced technology.

It is the midst of the tornado chaos, Kate’s team collides with another team of weather enthusiasts known as the ‘Tornado Wranglers’ (so very wrong that name) who glisten in social media glory even though, really, they’re just a noisy bunch of hicks.

They’re an eclectic mob of boisterous, music-blasting, merch-selling, all-American thrill seekers who infuriate Kate at first – and should pretty much infuriate the audience after a while.

While we’re all for diversity in film, this lot is so noisy you don’t know who is doing the shouting when nor for what reason. Segments of their mission are pretty stupid, too, such as the fact that their drone expert only has the one drone to record inside the tornados – which eventually gets destroyed leaving them with no way to record (duh, backup drones would have been wise).

This rival tribe of avid social media vloggers, led by Tyler (a charismatic old-school cowboy type played by Glen Powell) absolutely contrasts Kate, her calmer colleagues, and the peace that once existed in her small town in Oklahoma. In fact, even before the big twisters arrive, these folk cause a ruckus and a mess, shooting fire crackers into the air, revving their auto engines unnecessarily loudly, and all that noise.

The cliched characters – all with high predictability factors – are through the roof in this film. The tornado scenes are aplenty, possibly too many at once to be deemed realistic. And while the film makes for a nice change from the Marvel cinematic (CGI-laden) universe, you might find more realism in today’s average comic book adaptation than in this, a film that should have given more realness considering the current state of drastic climate change.

Towards the end of the movie, our protagonists end up inside the supposedly safe confines of a movie theatre – which we’re guessing is meant to serve as a metaphor (and self-promotion) that the movies are the safest place for us in a world turned utterly chaotic. Sadly, even those cinema walls are swallowed whole by the storms, which is kind of metaphoric, too, given the subtle disaster this film ultimately is.

Annette McCubbin & Antonino Tati

‘Twisters’ is in cinemas now.