The original Twister came out in 1996, 28 years ago. It had Bill Paxton in his prime, director Jan de Bont hot off of his Speed triumph, and characters using paper maps to track tornadoes. CGI was still in its infancy, and the special effects were groundbreaking; they hold up well today.
It also had that wonderful cow.
Here, in good ol’ crazy 2024, we finally get a middling sequel, Twisters. This one has Glen Powell instead of Paxton, Daisy Edgar-Jones in place of Helen Hunt, and no flying cows, at least that I could spot. It strives to deliver the same kind of goofy fun as the original—with a little less success. I mean, the original did have a crazed Philip Seymour Hoffman, Cameron from Ferris Bueller and Jeremy Davies in the supporting cast.
The plot is a copycat: Some storm chasers just happen to be in a crazy string of tornado occurrences, and they keep driving into them, no matter how bad the consequences get. While the original had a drive-in theater getting destroyed, this one destroys a rodeo.
The Dorothy device—the silly thing from the original that, for some reason, needed sirens on it before it got sucked up into a tornado for analytical purposes—actually makes an appearance. It’s still around, and it’s still stupid-looking. Why does it have to be a pressure-cooker-looking thing with sirens? It could be a big, sturdy plastic bag with the little measuring balls in it and still do the same thing. The expensive bedazzled container doesn’t do shit!
The chasers in Twisters are trying to kill tornadoes this time, using the stuff that absorbs urine in diapers. Powell’s wild-man character and Jones’ thoughtful scientist almost make it worthwhile, but the whole thing is somewhat unfulfilling in the end. You’ll see some shit get kicked up by twisters … and that’s about it. The disaster sequences look OK, but they aren’t very memorable.
The tornadoes remain a scary movie monster, and Twisters has a pretty high body count. If you really want to see it, do so during its theatrical run, on the big screen with big speakers. Maybe it will have enough whiz-bang to impress you, but I spent too much time yawning.
Twisters is now playing at theaters across the valley.
Yes, agreed, another spot-on review! Thank you. For country music lovers who don’t want to bother with this movie, the Twisters soundtrack’s available online (looked free when I googled).
My local family-owned multiplex is running ’96 Twister in the theater, next to this later knockoff, where it’s tracking better than the 2024 derivative version.
Don’t have a crystal ball but Deadpool & Wolverine sounds like lots more fun, w/ more experienced (and to me, hotter) actors, so the box office might change a whole lot starting this Friday! Hope so because as derivative as some Marvel fare has gotten in prior years, D&W as characters are top of the game (& I’m frankly tired of hum-drum IP sequels like Twisters that don’t have a Deadpool-level of wit driving the screenplay).