Disaster movies are often, well, a disaster. The genre’s halcyon days, when movies like The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno dominated the box office, are long gone, replaced with forgettable Michael Bay ripoffs and gimmicky creature features. But despite those insurmountable odds, there’s one final hope for the disaster genre: existing IP. If the catastrophe occurs in a movie world that already exists, then the genre can find new life.
This was proven this summer with Twisters, Lee Isaac Chung’s sequel to 1996’s singular Twister. It’s an old-fashioned and surprisingly fun blockbuster, and after a very successful theatrical run, Twisters is now available to watch at home.
While more of a reboot than a true follow-up, Twisters has the same DNA as its predecessor. Both open with the protagonist suffering a traumatic tornado encounter, then follow her years later as she tries to employ cutting-edge storm-sensing technology while dealing with a standoffish rival. In Twisters, our hero is Kate Carter (Daisy Edgar-Jones), who lost friends in a previous storm-chasing encounter but is lured back by her old chum Javi (Anthony Ramos) and has to contend with rival hotshot YouTube star Tyler Owens (Glen Powell).
While the faces and the story have changed, the weather is timeless, and Twisters delivers the same action that captured audiences 28 years ago. Whether it’s using an empty swimming pool as a makeshift shelter or trying to protect a crowd of small-town residents in a local movie theater, the disaster movie tropes are on full display.
That doesn’t, however, make Twisters predictable or boring. The movie’s greatest strength is its earnestness: there are no sly winks to the camera or deconstructions of the genre here. It’s a movie confident in its own abilities to stand alongside its predecessors, and it should be. It’s not trying to make a statement about Twister beyond “Hey, wasn’t Twister great?” and it proves that point over and over again.
Twisters’ release prompted critics to herald Glen Powell as a future star, in case Top Gun: Maverick and Hit Man weren’t evidence enough. But Twisters is also a movie of the past, a nostalgic look at what blockbusters could and still can be. It’s definitely best viewed in a theater, preferably one with the much-lauded “4DX experience” that feels tailor-made for Twisters. But with the summer blockbuster season over, Twisters is also the perfect way to add some heart-stopping tension to a cozy winter night.
