Nearly 30 years later, we now get Twister 2, cunningly entitled Twisters. But you know what? There’s more to this than a bit of wind.
When, in 1983, Anthony Perkins reprised the role of Norman Bates for a sequel to Alfred Hitchcock’s classic Psycho, there was much scoffing. On the one hand: a sequel to Psycho! Are you mad? On the other, it’d been – get this – 23 years since the first film came out. What kind of gap between a first and second film was that? Further madness.
Twisters, then.
Twenty eight years after Jan de Bont’s weather-em-up Twister threw cows at the screen and had the brilliant duo of Helen Hunt and the much-missed Bill Paxton chasing tornados, Hollywood has spat out a sequel.
Why? Well, money.
It’s clearly a project that follows the sequel template, as the title tells you. You got one twister in the first film, now you’re getting more. And they’re windier!
There’s no messing around, either. When the film begins, we’re thrown straight into a storm chase, with the only holdover from the first film – apart from some massive gusts – being the ‘Dorothy’ technology that’s still being used to study the innards of a tornado. However, it’s being wielded by different people, in this case a group of students led by Daisy Edgar-Jones’ Kate and Anthony Ramos’s Javi.
In a surprisingly brutal opening, things don’t go entirely to plan, though, as they try and tame a tornado: even though the technology for tracking storms is getting better, the risks are amplifying. Long story short, Kate doesn’t want to track storms anymore, at least until she does.
When we meet her again after what’s effectively a prologue, it’s because Javi has lured her back.She’d been spending her time looking at pictures of storms on computer screens and making (accurate) predictions. And by this time, I’m thinking: this is pretty good. Nothing radical, but I’m quite enjoying this. Seen a lot worse.
Mark L Smith’s script – he’s previously penned the likes of The Revenant and The Boys In The Boat, alongside genre fare such as the Vacancy films and Overlord – does then try to throw in a few extra elements. We thus get a new piece of technology, that if I’m understanding this right is basically like a nappy you put into the middle of a tornado. Then there are rival, competitive stormchasers, keen to stream everything live on the internet (when they hit the road, it feels a bit like The Cannonball Run). Amongst them is Glen Powell’s Tyler Owen, an inspired piece of casting given his current career trajectory.
And then, for good measure, there’s our old friend Corporate Bastard (well, he’s called Riggs in this film, but that’s by the by). In the guise of David Born, Corporate Bastard is less interested in the greater good and more in his bank balance. And then he promptly disappears off the screen once his work has done. Maybe there’s more of him on the cutting room floor, demanding your credit card number.
Back to what we do get to see though. Twisters feels like a pretty familiar cocktail. There’s a lead character who has a crisis of confidence, a collection of admittedly satisfying technobabble, some unexpected non-metaphorical fireworks, people talking in statements, and a shit-ton of wind.
It took me around half an hour though before I realised something: I was having an absolute whale of a time. This is really good fun.
I’ve always been a bit take it or leave it on the original Twister. Entertaining, but whenever I’ve gone back to it, I’ve got a sense of ‘you had to be there’ about it. I think Twisters is a real improvement, and there are a few reasons why.
Firstly, behind the camera. It wasn’t just my eyebrows that were raised when Minari director Lee Isaac Chung seemingly came out of nowhere to land the director’s chair. It was Hollywood studios seemingly going back to the playbook of giving an indie director a much bigger canvas, knowing that the executives would still retain control of the project.
What Chung has done – in conjunction with Smith’s script of course – is put actual characters in the middle of all the (excellent) visual effects. The core ensemble – Daisy Edgar Jones, Glen Powell, Anthony Ramos – are superbly cast. These three are terrific, and for different reasons they’re all movie stars. Sure, their character development is relatively light (although there’s clear effort put in), but I actually cared about them. I knew their names. And when they’re presumably on a soundstage having jet engines blown in their faces, I still believed they were in the middle of a tornado.
Chung’s action sequences are really, really good too. Terilyn A Shropshire’s editing is vacuum-packed at key moments, and it’s proper summer blockbuster stuff this. When the wind is blowing, you’re in no doubt about it. When the characters happen on a nicely built set, you’re almost counting the minutes before it’s flying in your face. Sure, the film sacrifices logic at the altar of entertainment more than once, but it’s not a bad trade off here.
There are moments when characters seem to be presented with a metaphorical hurdle that seems insurmountable to them, and they barely seem to have to take their foot off the floor to get over it. There’s stuff like that.
Yet it’s really good fun. It’s a long time since I’ve sat through a big summer sequel that I hadn’t realised I was enjoying quite as much as I was. Furiosa – arguably the film of the summer – is terrific, and fast. The Fall Guy had me early. This one crept up on me. And when the film calls time just before the two hour mark – a little over that when you pop the credits on – I felt thoroughly entertained and out in good time. A lovely surprise.
On the downside? No flying cow this time. On the upside? It’s better than Psycho II. Dare them to pop that quote on the poster…
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