At first, I was baffled by Lee Isaac Chung’s Twisters (2024). Chung is the very same director who, in 2020, broke out with the quiet Minari – a film about an immigrant South Korean family living in Arkansas during the 1980s. I sensed a tug-of-war between Chung’s directorial sensibility and the deliberately cookie-cutter style of the film I was watching.
As the end credits rolled, I saw that the story was credited to Joseph Kosinski and things started to make a lot more sense.
Kosinski’s style, which we witnessed in spades in his directorial feature Top Gun: Maverick (2022), is closer to the studio-backed, audience-tested, thrill-seeking, fun-at-times personality of Twisters. Thus Chung was expected to make what was essentially a Kosinski film. And this is something he does rather well. But this also means that Chung has to maintain a certain level of superficiality, probably even killing his own personal curiosity, to make a film that does not provoke questions – and exists only to provide answers, saviours and a happy ending.
A reboot (or rather a remake) of Jan de Bont’s 1996 Twister – Chung’s film seems set to a template from when disaster or creature films would dominate most Hollywood studios’ annual slates. They were not necessarily bad films, but their homogeneous look and pace meant that viewers could practically see the studio’s notes to the filmmaker – asking them to stop dwelling on specificities, steer clear of commentary that might antagonise the audience, and championing a certain kind of American fantasy.
Credit to Chung’s film where it’s due, it cuts to the chase almost immediately, not wasting any time at all.
Kate Carter (Daisy Edgar-Jones) is a PhD student, who with a group of five friends – which also includes her boyfriend Jeb, played by Daryl McCormack – is trying to execute an experiment, where she’s able to ‘tame’ a tornado. Growing up in Oklahoma – a state severely affected by tornadoes that destroy entire towns – Kate’s mission is to find a way to diffuse a tornado, or at least kill its severity. High on their youth, the group finds themselves in the midst of a tornado significantly more lethal than they imagined.
Surviving the tragedy, Kate is guilt-ridden. Having moved to New York to work for the national meteorological department, Kate is chased down by a surviving member of the group, Javi (Anthony Ramos). He has a special project that he’s working on that allows him to use military-grade equipment to detect a three-dimensional scan of a tornado. All he needs are Kate’s instincts at predicting which tornado will last long enough, allowing them to do their work. Initially, Kate is hesitant to join Javi’s undertaking, but all it takes is a simple news alert about another town destroyed by a tornado for Kate to change her mind. This is that kind of a film.
A still from ‘Twisters’.
Back in Oklahoma, Kate runs into the boisterous YouTube crew – led by Tyler Owens (Glen Powell) – who call themselves ‘tornado wranglers’. Powell, using his affable movie star charm – breathes life into a character without the slightest depth. Tasked with always looking muscular, cocky, kind and heroic, Powell remains a feast for the eyes, without ever registering in the brain. Edgar-Jones as the haunted Kate, doesn’t have Powell’s charisma, to make a flatly-written character even remotely compelling. Doling out ethical lessons to Javi, Edgar-Jones’ character never brings any characteristic to differentiate her from thousands of haunted female, white-girl protagonists from the past. Despite her kind presence, Edgar-Jones cannot quite shoulder the weight of a flippant, snack-able film like this.
Despite the thin writing (by Mark L. Smith), Twisters remains watchable for its action set-pieces. After learning about the shadowy real-estate mogul funding Javi’s project, so the firm can purchase lands and homes at distressed prices, Kate joins hands with Tyler to help the people of Oklahoma. For a film that is understandably affectionate towards conservative America, it’s no surprise that as the tornadoes become more frequent, no character utters a word about climate change. Tyler is shown to be selling T-shirts with his face on it, only so he can use the proceeds to help the town folk with free water, food and clothes after a tornado hits.
A still from ‘Twisters’.
Twisters is so sincere with its cheesiness that one can almost forgive Chung for it. But that also means that he inherits the socio-political blindspots of the ‘90s blockbusters, as it predictably coasts towards the climax. Maybe the real disaster film in here is of a Hollywood system that sucks in a gifted director, only to spit out the safest, most agreeable and pliant film of his career.
