A kinder, gentler disaster movie than 1996’s Twister, Twisters has a surprising reverence for nature—even when nature kills. The story centers around weather scientist Kate Carter (Daisy Edgar-Jones). When a “tornado outbreak” hits Oklahoma, Kate returns there for the first time since a storm-related tragedy when she was a graduate student, some five years earlier. While trying to reconcile her past, she must also deal with Tyler Owens (Glen Powell), a YouTube star who drives his truck into the eye of the storm and launches fireworks, to the delight of his hundreds of thousands of online followers. If Tyler is a “tornado wrangler,” Kate is a twister whisperer. Watching the flow of the wind over the grass or shifts in the color of the light, she can anticipate a storm’s behavior. Talking about “the mystery” of tornados, she says it’s “part science, part religion.” This makes director Lee Isaac Chung, who previously made the gentle, meditative, and rural-set family drama Minari, a surprisingly fitting choice. Unlike in Twister, where director Jan de Bont turned the tornados into predators, Twisters sees them as mystical forces worthy of respect. And so Kate stands before them in a state of rapture, studying for a way to live with these elemental beasts, rather than conquer them. Like Twister, Twisters uses real-life locations to ground the impressive special effects; in one gorgeous shot, a rusty dirt road runs down the center of the screen, deep green grasses sway on either side, and a heavy blue sky hangs above—cut by the swirling blackness of an approaching funnel. In addition to the requisite action and excitement, there’s a painterliness to Twisters that I didn’t expect.
(7/20/2024)
