The Media Tourist

Add an ‘S,’ new stars, more tornadoes and stir for what’s almost assured to be the summer’s hottest popcorn movie

Twisters
Starring Glen Powell, Daisy Edgar-Jones and Anthony Ramos
Directed by Lee Issac Chung
Rated PG-13

In theaters Friday, July 20

Nearly three decades ago, the original Twister movie blew audiences—and most of its competition—away, barely missing becoming the highest-grossing film of 1996. Now, to paraphrase a line from a Chubby Checker hit, let’s twist again like we did last summer, with more stars, more tornadoes, more wind-shearing wowza and more big-screen wallop.  

Adding an “s” to the original movie, the newly pluralized Twisters returns to the tornado alley of Oklahoma, where a wave of monster funnel clouds is marching across small-town America. Can Kate, a young meteorologist (Daisy Edgar-Jones), figure out how to shut down the killer storms? Will Tyler, a tornado-chasing adrenaline-junkie YouTuber (Glen Powell), convince her he’s not really such a cad? Can Javi, her former college bud (Anthony Ramos), win her heart after the tragedy five years ago that tore them apart? The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind.

And there’s a lot of wind in Twisters, with all kinds of snarl coming down from the skies. The tornadoes are CGI wonders, much more sophisticated special-effect creations than back in the mid ‘90s, when large-scale computer-generated imagery was still in its infancy. There are several pulse-pounding sequences as the intrepid storm wranglers head into funnel clouds of all shapes and sizes, including a roaring pillar of fire picking up steam after it mows down an oil refinery. The movie makes you feel about as up-close and intimate as you’ll ever want to be to a tornado.

Director Lee Issac Chung brings the same detailed sense of setting that he demonstrated in his Oscar-nominated Minari (2020), about South Korean immigrants resettling in rural Arkansas. His cameras capture the sweeping spectacle but also the intimacy—of dandelions in the breeze, fields of grain in a shifting wind, the heartbeats of heartland life. On one such occasion, at a rodeo event, Kate learns that Tyler used to be a bull rider, and he compares what he did then with what he does now. “Tornadoes, bulls—same thing,” he says. “You don’t just face your fears, you ride ‘em.”

And to ride out these storms, you’ve got some extremely eye-catching companions in the romantic triangle of main actors. You might recognize Britain’s Edgar-Jones from Where the Crawdads Sing, and Ramos from the musical In the Heights. But it’s Powell who really steals the spotlight from the sky. Coming off of two other well-received flicks, Anyone But You and Hit Man, he’s the movie man of the moment, now as a hunky, cowboy-hatted slice of sex appeal, for sure. Is it hot and humid in here, from the summer swelter and the falling barometric pressure of a tornado getting ready to rumble? Or is it just Glen Powell, strutting onscreen in a torso-hugging white tee, flashing a megawatt smile? In between the twisters, you can practically hear the audience swooning.

There’s a lot of sorta-science banter about tornadoes, what they do, how they’re formed and how they’re designated. You even hear the name of the meteorologist, Ted Fujita, who devised the now-standard system of tornado classification—EF-1, EF-2, and so on—back in the ‘70s. But nobody will be going to see Twisters be tutored about science. They’ll be going to see churning monsters from above, vehicles picked up and strewn around like toys, people sucked screaming into their dooms in a swirling abyss of wind and debris.

And, of course, Glen Powell smiling, strutting, poured into a white T-shirt.

The movie’s final tornado scene is a real gollywhopper, with the chasers herding the citizenry of a small town, during the rip-roaring “the storm of the century,” into the only shelter readily available. “Everybody into the movie theater!” someone shouts.

And getting you into the theater is exactly what Twisters is all about. So hang on—and hold on—for this summer’s wildest, windiest must-see popcorn movie.

—Neil Pond