Movie Review: Twisters

3.5 stars out of 5

Hmm, 3.5, what’s that on the Fujita scale? Seeing this movie was sort of a perfect storm for me: I dig weather porn, I have fond memories of Twister from back in 1996, plus I’m one of the countless throngs who fell in love with Daisy Edgar-Jones in Normal People. (Crimminy, in 1996, I was still older than Daisy is now.) And I was interested to see what director Lee Isaac Chung, whose 2021 Minari was a thinking person’s film, would do with what’s really a popcorn movie.

We meet former college tornado chaser Kate (Edgar-Jones). Just when she thought she was out — moved from Oklahoma to New York, working for The Man — they pull her back in. An old Okie pal (who I hoped was High School Musical’s Corbin Bleu but alas, is not) lures her with new tech that should save lives in her hometown and throughout Tornado Alley, which is experiencing a troubling uptick in twister activity.

Ah, but a raucous band of tornado chasers who only care about “likes” and “going viral” also arrive, led by Glen Powell. (I still need to see Hit Man, I’m proud of myself for still not seeing Anyone But You, and I didn’t mention Powell in my review of the very likable Everybody Wants Some!!) And these two groups of chasers do not like each other. You might say a rivalry develops!

This is the worst, slowest part of the movie, and it goes on too long. (Pacing, Chung, pacing!) Ah, but then the drama… and the tornadoes… ramp up (plot twisters??), and now we’ve got a movie! But if only these two very attractive leads would look beneath the surface of each other, and see that perhaps their assumptions were off-base! Well, you’ll just have see for yourself, in the theater, or streaming soon on the Weather Channel.