In 1996, Jan De Bont, the director behind “Speed,” gave us “Twister;” a full-octane special effects extravaganza whose elevator pitch could be summed up to: what if “JAWS” but if the shark was a mile-high swirling band of dust and atmosphere?
A formative film for many, I remember first seeing it with a babysitter on VHS, few of the high concept, disaster-type movies of the era quite so elegantly stand the test of time. Just try to pop on “Volcano” and let me know if your heart soars quite so high. Watching the film with friends recently, I audibly gasped at the opening title shot as a helicopter buzzes low across mid-western farmland only to find Bill Paxton and Jami Gertz driving down the road as a crop duster blasts the field behind them. I had to rewind the movie three times JUST to prove that it was all done in camera. They truly don’t make them like they used to. VFX technology was held together by Bazooka Gum and dreams in 1996 yet somehow the “Twisters” team were able to depict storm systems that shook audiences to their core. De Bont and Co. somehow crafted the platonic ideal of a Hollywood Summer Blockbuster: a big concept, with eye-popping effects, filled with movie stars (Bill Paxton, Helen Hunt, Cary Elwes) and a rogues gallery of character actors (Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Lois Smith, Alan Ruch). This bombastic cinematic soup was a seminal film for an entire generation of Millennials and has persisted as a cable TV classic.
Now 30 years later, a fresh batch of storm chasers are ready to take on one of the most primordial forces on the face of the Earth: the Legacy Sequel.
“Twisters” hopes to replicate the winning recipe of its predecessor with similar ingredients. The concept for this nearly thirty years later sequel is as straightforward as its title; pulling the same move that James Cameron did with “Aliens” in 1986. i.e. what if the scary thing from the first one but MORE OF THEM? The effects are a no-brainer, with modern VFX artists crafting twin dueling twisters that dance with such majesty you’d be forgiven for forgetting to run for your life. But “Twisters” brings with it a style of old-school filmmaking that belies modern sole devotion to digital trickery, with huge sets and grand vistas of farmland just begging for audiences to bask within them. They don’t make them like they used to, but they rarely make them like this now. There is a world where this movie was made entirely on a soundstage in LA and we are all the better that it was not. All that is left is to fill out the roster with a bullpen of fresh-faced movie stars. THIS is the “Twisters” ace in the hole, with movie star du jour Glen Powell (“Hitman”, “Top Gun: Maverick”) lending his wry smile as a roguish storm chaser with a chip on his shoulder and up-and-coming Daisy Edgar-Jones (“Where The Crawdads Sing”, “Under The Banner of Heaven”) as a young prodigy looking to redeem the death of her friends at the hands of an unpredictable twister. These two young scientists’ begin as competitors but eventually morph into allies as an unnatural level of storm system assaults Oklahoma, setting them on a collision course of romantic and literal destruction as they work together to study, and hopefully even destroy, the deadly assault of these horrific storm systems.
Directed by Academy Award Nominee Lee Isaac Chung (“Minari”) and co-written by Mark L. Smith, Joseph Kosinski (“Top Gun: Maverick”), and the late Michael Crichton (“Jurassic Park”) “Twisters” has the big budget bonafides to take you for a ride this summer.
Check it out where you can, and make sure to hold onto your hats.
You’ll be glad you did.
“Twisters” is playing at The Prytania Theater, Prytania Theatres at Canal Place, and The Broad Theater.
