Twisters blew into theaters this week and brought with it that feeling of the summer blockbuster.
It is hard to accurately pin it down or describe it perfectly, but you know it when it hits. Led by the wonderful Daisy Edgar-Jones (Normal People) and the utterly charming and wonderful Glen Powell (Top Gun: Maverick, Hit Man), this is a movie for people that just love movies.
Although a sequel to the iconic 1996 disaster flick, Twister, director Lee Isaac Chung (Minari) went the route of not having any direct ties to the original except, you know, the tornadoes. No one is a relative of Helen Hunt’s Jo or Bill Paxton’s Bill, and that feels like a smart decision.
MORE: 16 fabulous pictures of Glen Powell (and Brisket) from the Twisters red carpet events
Instead, we get the world of Twister but with a new spin (no pun intended). It is a lot of pressure on Edgar-Jones and Powell to match the charisma of Hunt and Paxton, but the duo succeeds. In the 2024 upgrade of the disaster flick, we have Kate (Edgar-Jones), who survives a traumatic experience with a twister and goes on to work in an office in New York instead of continuing to chase tornadoes in Oklahoma.
The remaining members of Kate’s crew, Javi — played by Anthony Ramos of Hamilton and In the Heights — reaches out to her five years later with a proposition to help him track down storms to collect data with the hopes of preventing future devastation.
She eventually gives in, returning home and running into Powell’s Tyler Owens, a cowboy streamer in the world of tornadoes that has groupies and followers as a self-proclaimed “tornado wrangler.”
Essentially, Twisters is like if Helen Hunt’s character started out with Cary Elwes’s character from the original then met and was charmed by Bill Paxton’s character and the pair teamed up to make a difference.
The action pieces are unreal (see this in IMAX if you can), and it grips you from start to finish. When it ended, I wanted more, and what else can you ask from a summer blockbuster?
Movie: Twisters
Release Date: July 19
Director: Lee Isaac Chung
Stars: Daisy Edgar-Jones, Glen Powell, Anthony Ramos
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
