Twisters
Although Lee Isaac Chung’s Twisters, a standalone sequel to the second-biggest holiday hit of 1996, may be from a different century than Jan de Bont’s original, it shares the same formulaic narrative with a few kinks and encapsulates the same creative swirl.
Despite the devastation she endured at the hands of a storm, Daisy Edgar-Jones’s Kate Cooper is enticed by her buddy Javi’s (Anthony Ramos) offer to test a revolutionary new tracking device on the broad plains. Shortly after, she meets Tyler Owens (Glen Powell), a charismatic but carefree social media sensation who makes a living documenting his storm-chasing exploits. Multiple storm systems converge over central Oklahoma, putting Kate, Tyler, and their rival squads in a life-or-death struggle as storm season heats up.
Looking at the tornados in Twisters, I had the impression that I’d witnessed something similar before and that the imagery of real tornadoes on social media, is much more impressive. Plenty of technical jargon requires blind trust, but Jones and Powell do an excellent job of selling it and making it fascinating. Twisters nevertheless manages to make a strong case for going to the movies this holiday, despite its unwarranted kindness towards viral content makers.
Even though Mark L. Smith’s script focuses more on the devastating power of these natural disasters—and the toll they take on the communities and individuals they touch—the destruction they cause is tinged with wonder. It is through this wonder that Kate, Tyler, and his ragtag band of storm-chasing outcasts can experience the intense rush of saving hope from impending doom.
True to its word, Twisters does all it can to suck everyone into the theatre zone, even though there isn’t much that anyone will cherish—beautiful people, rapid-fire action, real tragedy, with a modern country-rock soundtrack to push it along, and some subtle commentary on the predatory capitalism of climate change thrown in for good measure.
Experience it in cinemas from 12 July.
-Dirk Lombard Fourie