Susan Granger’s review of “Twisters” (Universal Pictures)
Having barely survived a monstrous Oklahoma tornado as a storm-chasing teenager, traumatized Kate Carter (Daisy Edgar-Jones) moved to New York, where she’s secured a meteorologist job with the National Weather Service, confident that cyclones aren’t going to hit Coney Island.
Five years earlier, she was obsessively trying to secure a research grant for an ambitious Ph.D. thesis that involved chemistry: i.e. neutralizing storms by absorbing the moisture trapped in their wind funnels.
Kate thought she’d left that project far behind but then her old pal Javi (Anthony Ramos) convinces her to join him for one week to get three-dimensional tornado scans using portable radar units. Javi has obtained data-collecting funding from a rich investor but needs Kate’s instinctive ability to predict propulsive storm paths.
Back in Oklahoma’s Tornado Alley, they’re surrounded by other storm chasers, a rowdy group led by cocky, boisterous “tornado wrangler” Tyler Owens (Glen Powell) who broadcasts a livestream YouTube feed in his tricked-out pickup truck as his intrepid team flies drones and shoots fireworks into the funnel of an intensifying storm.
At first, Kate and Tyler compete but then, predictably, they’re romantically involved, leaving Javi – literally – in the dust.
Director Lee Isaac Chang (“Minari’) deftly incorporates screenwriter Mark l. Smith’s action/adventure/escapist screenplay – based on a story by Joseph Kosinski – and intriguing characters with cinematogrpher Dan Mindel’s spectacular CGI action in this solid semi-sequel to Jan De Bont’s 1996’s disaster hit “Twister.”
While the words “climate change” are never spoken, questions about this unfolding crisis and weather modifications haunt scientists. Do tornadoes serve a purpose? Do thunder storms, hurricanes and flash floods? Are they simply natural phenomena that occur to alleviate energy imbalances between the poles and the Equator? What might happen if we don’t let nature take its course?
On the Granger Gauge of 1 to 10, “Twisters” is a swirling, adrenaline-spiking 7, playing in theaters.
