Kate Cooper (Daisy Edgar-Jones) abandons storm chasing after an experiment to tame a tornado goes catastrophically wrong. But when old colleague Javi (Anthony Ramos) approaches her five years later with a new plan to map tornadoes that could save thousands of lives she returns to the fold still carrying the PTSD from five years earlier. 

On arrival back home in Oklahoma she meets Javi’s team (which includes DC’s future Superman actor David Corenswet playing a hardass) and the circus that is “science cowboy”  Tyler Owens’ (Glen Powell) crew. The two rival groups fight for position chasing tornadoes as Kate and Tyler begin an unlikely friendship. 

Twisters is ostensibly a sequel to 1996’s Twister. But given it has zero story threads or characters associated with each other it is essentially a remake or a reboot that follows the same story themes with characters that roughly translate to each other. 

For someone as old as I am who saw the original at the cinema the results are mixed. 

The positives are that the effects work and action sequences are fantastic. The twisters in question feel dangerous and impactful. Whilst the actual circumstances the various human characters find themselves in under them are at times frightening and comical. And our two lead protagonists are great for different reasons. Daisy Edgar-Jones lends her character a subtle tinge of the damage that she suffers at the beginning of the movie throughout, but lends a steely determination to get through that pain. Whilst Glen Powell continues his phenomenal career trajectory since Top Gun Maverick with a magnetic charismatic asshole who you slowly warm to! 

Where it falters though is its supporting cast and ability to land strong emotional beats outside of twister set pieces. The original Twister had a phenomenal supporting cast including the wonderful Philip Seymour Hoffman. Twisters has a great supporting cast including the aforementioned David Corenswet, Anthony Ramos and Katy O’Brien. But they have little to do and struggle to make an impact. It is also highly predictable which means little emotional impact throughout. I guarantee that you know what every major story beat will be before it happens. 

The result is a film with as much good in it to recommend it as bad in it to find a bore. As long as the leads and set pieces can sustain you through the lulls then you should have a good time. It’s just that your journey, just like our storm chasers may be a little bumpy.