In Boston (nowhere near tornado country), I heard a cliché many, many times: “If you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes.” I assume the locals meant from April to November, cuz Boston from December to March is pretty miserable no matter what you do. A lot of locals in a lot of places have this same saying. It is hardly unique to Boston, but watching Twisters, I’d guess the Oklahoma locals would have developed a saying quite similar … perhaps something along the lines of, “If you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes for it to come KILL YOU!!”
Oh yeah, the Twisters know where you are, baby, and they’re comin’ for you! Always! Well, not at night, it would seem. Twisters need their beauty sleep, apparently.
I love how one of the plot points here is to get “triangulation” on a twister – i.e. surround it on three sides with scientific data-reading machinery. Geez, folks. Waaaaaaaaay too much work. Honestly, with all the tornadoes this place has, just freaking plant three machines anywhere and wait for a tornado to enter the sweet spot. It’s bound to happen every few minutes, based on what I saw.
Like the original Helen Hunt/Bill Paxton “classic,” Twisters is about a bunch of morons who chase tornadoes for a living. Oh, but these are competitive morons. Which ones do we root for? The ones without the degrees, of course. I’m embarrassed for any presenter who believes the best way to appeal to an audience is to slam education. You know what you get when don’t respect education? President Trump. You know what you get when you shun education altogether? The evidence-free belief that President Trump was good for this country. Or any country. Or any set of people. Including the ultra-wealthy. You’re fools, all of you.
But I digress.
The focus of Twisters is Kate (Daisy Edgar-Jones), an Oklahoma tornado whisperer with a belief that tornadoes can be tamed. In fact, she drives around with college buds attempting to do exactly that … until three of them get killed by a tornado. This causes Kate to move to New York City where she wears a business outfit for half a scene until her still alive college friend, Javi (Anthony Ramos), summons her back to her original calling.
Ah, but the tornado game has changed. Javi leads a group of educated eggheads who attempt to learn more through triangulation. Seriously, your plan is to find a tornado and get close enough to plant your little devices and get some huge scientific analysis that somehow can’t be had through satellite dishes or radar or stationary compliers? And then, what? Hope the tornado manages to miss all three sets of vans -deliberately placed to surround it- when it moves? Man, this film had a point; maybe you eggheads are morons, too.
Meanwhile, there is a rival group of tornado chasers who are bombastic thrill-seeking internet content-vomiters. They’re led by Tyler (Glen Powell), who has the only vehicle actually built specifically for chasing a tornado – not only is it heavy, fast, and all-terrain, it screws itself into the ground on command. Well, that’s kinda clever – especially when you realize that once a tornado takes you up in the sky, you’re gonna die. And the ability of a tornado to take you up in the sky has entirely to do with proximity, and little else.
But seriously, I want you to examine this premise – two groups of rival tornado chasers (Why are they rivals? Why don’t they work together?) — One is a group of scientists looking to study tornadoes and use that knowledge for the betterment of all. The other is a group of monster truck douchebags whose sole goal seems to be “to shoot fireworks up a Twister’s asshole.” Lucky for them, Twisters are comprised of mostly asshole … not unlike the entire cast.
Now, the $64,000 question: which group are we supposed to root for? Only in America would
we guess the click-bait idiots and be correct. Deep down, they’re really nice people. Yeah, I’m sure the same can be said of Trump voters … but in the end, they voted for Trump, which makes them exactly the opposite no matter what they pretend they are IRL.
Similarly, this film wants to pretend it’s about “solving” tornadoes and figuring out how to pacify them. Gosh, is it a documentary? Cuz that info could come in handy. Maybe next we can “solve” earthquakes and tsunamis after this. But that’s all a sham. Of course. The film is really about showing lethal weather phenomena on a big screen, just like the original. And in between special effect sequences, the film gave us a tepid love story to chew on.
The film is not without positives: the effects really are quite good. They make it seem like Twisters are part of the cast. Also, I enjoyed the Wizard of Oz call signs; that’s a nice touch. At times, Twisters plays like a dumbed-down city v. country version of Vengeance, a much more thoughtful film, and at times, Twisters plays exactly like Twister. I was kinda hoping for a multiple cow scene this time around. No such luck. I’ll grant you this – the film is a thriller. And if you have to see it, you probably ought to see it on the biggest screen with the loudest sound system you can find. But you aren’t going to be taking much more from it than weather. You want to see a better film? Wait five minutes.
Once lived a young woman named Kate
Who knew twisters since she was just eight
Given a chance
To end her dark dance
Instead, she acquired a mate
Rated PG-13, 122 Minutes
Director: Lee Isaac Chung
Writer: Mark L. Smith, Joseph Kosinski, Michael Crichton
Genre: Movies intended for IMAX consumption
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: How excited do you get about tornadoes?
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: How excited do you get about tornadoes?
