There's good news and bad news as far as the new legacy sequel "Twisters" is concerned. The good news is that this is a far better film than the original 1996 "Twister" with Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt. Faint praise considering that I didn’t care that much for the original "Twister". The story involving a freshly divorced couple chasing tornadoes together was too cheesy and stupid for my taste. This sequel has the courtesy of sparing us such nonsense with its narrative. The bad news however is that "Twisters" is an uneven and messy work on its own terms.
It starts off promisingly enough with an aspiring storm chaser (Daisy Edgar-Jones) who alongside fellow college colleagues is hard at work with new equipment to ease the intensity of tornadoes. After her experiment fails at the cost of everyone's lives except for one (Anthony Ramos), five years pass and we see her as a meteorologist in New York City. When her friend comes back with a chance to basically try and chase tornadoes again, she reluctantly agrees even though the tragedy is still fresh in her mind.
As these two make the rounds with tracking tornadoes in their Oklahoma hometown, a fellow storm chaser (Glen Powell) rides onto the scene and hogs the spotlight with his YouTube influence. A semi-rivalry is established at first, but further into the plot, his true motivations regarding the exposure of the duo's current employer are thrust into the mix. It's around this point when the weaknesses with the story itself become apparent. This specific subplot regarding the corruption of this company's boss feels undeniably rushed and completely unnecessary.
If these segments highlighting the tension this boss is supposed to impose were removed, you wouldn't be able to tell that subplot was there. We only see this offender for a whopping few seconds. That's how useless this subplot is. It's only there for Ramos' character arc to be made clear and even then it wasn't needed that badly. Jones' journey with overcoming her past mistakes and her current lack of confidence is at least clear cut in its progression.
Excluding the three leads (Jones, Powell, and Ramos), hardly anyone else in the cast resonated enough for me to remember them a week or two from now. Not because of poor acting at all. But more because of what their stock characters bring to the table or rather don't bring. To any future screenwriters, whoever keeps penning the dialogue for scripts such as "Twisters" ought to be sued for outright plagiarism. I'm so sick and tired of this stock cookie cutter dialogue that's been used over and over again since the turn of the century.
If I have to see one more character in a film utter the lines: "Are you seeing this right now?" over an action packed moment that just happened, I'll throw any given object nearby at the screen in frustration. The dialogue is super tropey and stale that we'd be better off if some characters were silent instead. The special effects, both practical and CGI, are decent enough in showcasing mother nature's veracity and tenacity with all its wind, rain, and hail. For what is worth however, the original "Twister" had a much better soundtrack.
As someone who is sick to death of country music at large, this film sure could've used more rock or heavy metal instead of mostly country. That would've at least added more variety into the mix in that field. Jones and Ramos are given solid character arcs that help their work here stand out more. Jones specifically exerts a wide range of emotion, ranging from excitement over a scientific discovery to tear inducing fear holding onto dear life mid-storm. Powell is only alright. He's enjoying his time on camera just fine. There just isn't that much to the character he plays. No real arc like the other two leads.
"Twisters" is reasonably paced for the first half until it looses its momentum around the midpoint, due to the narrative lacking detail and consistency. Whatever details we get aren't enough to the point that they feel abrupt. There are interesting elements to be found in "Twisters", but most of the experience is average at best. Much like the namesake of the film, "Twisters" makes the mistake of getting caught up in itself and taking the hard way out in redeeming itself.
Final Verdict: 6/10
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