Twisters Movie Review Rating:
Star Cast: Daisy Edgar-Jones, Glen Powell, and Anthony Ramos
Director: Lee Isaac Chung
What’s Good: The visual effects department has done an amazing job at creating some of the most impressive tornados ever made on screen, including the destruction they left behind.
What’s Bad: The characters never end up feeling real, and because of it, their motivations fall flat in contrast with the disaster spectacle around them.
Loo Break: As it is usual with most movies, the second act is filled with scenes that don’t really add much to the story and feel like their content should have been used somewhere else in the film.
Watch or Not?: Yes, this is a fun movie to watch in theaters, even if it isn’t as memorable.
Language: English (with subtitles).
Available On: Theaters
Runtime: 120 Minutes.
User Rating:
Opening:
The 1990s was a spectacular decade for blockbusters, as filmmakers were starting to discover CGI as a tool that could actually make the impossible feel real on screen. Films like Jurassic Park, The Matrix, Episode I, and yes, the original Twister pushed the boundaries of what was possible, resulting in memorable and fun films that still feel a bit like miracles nowadays, as movies now are struggling really hard to come up with something new and fresh to keep audiences in their seats. The new Twisters is a nice throwback to those simple times.
Twisters Movie Review: Script Analysis
The original Twister was a film dedicated to the creation of charming characters, and put them into an overwhelming situation, and thanks to actors like Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton those characters managed to bring what was on the script to life in wonderful ways. Sadly, the new Twisters thinks that more is better and falls into the trap most sequels fall into when trying to top the previous entry in the franchise. This time, the script introduces three major characters that then become a bit scattered by a script that feels hollow.
The scattered feeling comes from the use of at least a dozen other characters that are present at all times, almost in every scene and yet, these characters do absolutely nothing to move the plot forward, and certainly have zero characterization which makes them feel like filler. Why have so many characters if none of them are really important? It is a weird choice that feels more like a diversity push than anything else; it feels forced and useless.
Our main characters don’t fare better, not because they are useless to the plot, but because their characterization feels quite tame and boring. The characters of Kate and Javi, long time friends and storm chasers at heart, don’t have any sense of personality outside their love for chasing storms; meanwhile, Glen Powell’s Tyler, while certainly the most charming of the bunch, doesn’t have too much to offer really.
All the conversations are exposition or simple verbalization of the character’s inner feelings, there is nothing that could make these characters feel real, and this diminishes the enjoyment of the film, because they don’t really matter, and when the film puts them inside dangerous situations the outcome could be anything and most members of the audience wouldn’t care.
Twisters Movie Review: Star Performance
Like I said before, there are a ton of actors here, but none of them are really important. There is even an appearance by David Corenswet, who will be the next Superman in James Gunn’s new DC film, but here in Twisters Corenswet barely registers, as his character is completely useless and shouldn’t have existed at all, and he is just one example of several.
Our main performers are Daisy Edgar-Jones, who has been moving up in the Hollywood ladder for a while, and even though she is a solid actress, her character Kate doesn’t have gravitas throughout the film, which is a shame, as the movie centers around her story, and the film even points this out loud at one point. Glen Powell is as charming as you can imagine, and his character is exactly that, just charm, and not much else. Ramos ends up getting the short end of the stick, as his character had amazing potential, but not even the film cares about developing it.
Twisters Movie Review: Direction, Music
The most surprising element of Twisters is its director, Lee Isaac Chung, who we know from the excellent family drama, Minari, which was nominated for several Academy Awards, and is now directing this big blockbuster. The director certainly knows how to translate his abilities into this other type of film, and at least on a spectacle level, Chung manages to pull it off, creating some very tense and chaotic disaster scenes worth watching on the big screen.
The visual effects are certainly the most impressive aspect of the production, as the storms and the tornados, of course, feel big, epic, and dangerous, exactly as they should be. Meanwhile, the music composed by Benjamin Wallfisch does the job, but it isn’t particularly memorable. The balance between the VFX work and the story the film tries to deliver is flawed, and there is no doubt that with a better script, Chung could have done a much better and exciting film.
Twisters Movie Review: The Last Word
Twisters is a fun time at the theaters, but it could have been so much better if the script had the restraint to tell a story and not fill the cast with a plethora of useless characters, and also by giving the character more to do. Chung does an amazing job at staging these wonderful disaster sequences and proves his talents go beyond the family drama genre, but let’s hope he can get better scripts in the future. On the other hand, Glen Powell continues to ride the wave this year, and while this movie is not the best of the bunch, it won’t hurt his potential to become an actual movie star.
Twisters Trailer
Twisters released on 18th July, 2024.