If You Feel It, Chase It: Tornado time for the revival of classic 90s disaster film

Hi Readers,

If, like me you love a disaster film, then I would recommend Twisters. It’s a stand-alone reboot of a classic film from 1996 – Twister and this time we’ve got Glen Powell, Daisy Edgar-Jones and some dodgy politics. When visual effects and CGI started becoming more widely used in films, audiences were able to see never-seen-before events. In 2024, visual effects have to be almost invisible for the every man to be impressed.

Having worked in visual effects, I enjoyed the weather effects that were created and they looked very realistic. With advances in technology, we saw the use of drones and 3D mapping software as well as the social media effect on storm chasing.

Twisters (2024)

The opening scenes establish the character of Kate and her friends as they go on a storm chase as part of a research project. Javi (Anthony Ramos) is the grumpy one of the group who appears to be not as enthusiastic as the rest of the gang. When an EF 5 tornado hits the area, the group rush to collect data in the hope of testing Kate’s invention to stop tornadoes in their tracks. Unfortunately, it was much bigger than expected and Kate’s (Daisy Edgar-Jones) three closest friends including her boyfriend, Jeb (Daryl McCormack) are dragged into the wind tunnel.

Cut to five years later, Kate is living a sensible yet boring life in New York City, working at the weather centre, sending alerts to those in Tornado Valley. Her old friend Javi comes back into her life and persuades her to join his military backed storm chasing squad complete with state-of-the-art technology and pristine vehicles. They are funded by a mysterious Marshall Riggs, a real-estate tycoon in the Midwest.

Kate goes back to her native Oklahoma and comes across Tyler Owens (Glen Powell) and his team of rambunctious amateurs, filming their escapes for their popular YouTube channel and with a British journalist in tow who clearly doesn’t know what he has gotten himself into. At first Kate is on Javi’s side and sees Tyler and his friends as show-offs who like to ride danger and are just making money from their devoted fans. She has a few flash backs from the deaths of her friends and Javi’s co-worker, Scott (David Corenswet) is not pleased.

Kate was brought along for her apparent psychic gift of predicting which tornadoes will hold and which will disappear into the clouds. Her and Tyler compete for the best storms with her misdirecting him a few times until she sees the work that he and his group do to help those affected by the tornadoes. They sell merchandise to be able to give free meals to people who have just lost everything. They also stay and help clear up which is more than Storm Par and Javi’s team do.

Through Tyler and Javi and a visit to her mother, Kate finds her passion for storm chasing again.

The film has some big names behind the scenes with Steven Spielberg credited as Executive Producer as well as writers, producers of films such as Jurassic World and Top Gun: Maverick. The production design was great and I loved that the scenes were filmed in Oklahoma rather than a giant lot in Atlanta or London. It gave a very authentic vibe and made it seem more natural.

I loved the story arc and the action scenes as both contributed to making the film an exciting watch. Daisy Edgar-Jones was great as her character with her accent and manner and you could see in her movements and facial expressions that the anguish of losing her boyfriend and friends still weighed on her as she believed it was her fault.

Glen Powell was also great in his role. As a native Texan, he was a good pick for Tyler and while he just seems to be the naive jock of the storm chasing world, you gradually find out there is more to him than meets the eye. His looks and confident persona can make you think that he is a surface level character but everyone has layers to them.

Overall, I really enjoyed the film and even though I have not seen the original, the two were not linked so you can enjoy the sequel without prior knowledge. Disaster films are one of my favourite genres and this was a great addition. I give it 5/5.

Happy Watching,

Robyn