Will Twisters blow you away?

Okay, that might be a bit of an overstatement. But it’s a headline that’s baked into the Twisters cake and I’m oblidged to shoe-horn it into my review. Let it not be said that The Average Dude doesn’t take a gimme when it’s offered.

Suspension of disbelief

Twisters is not a sequel, as you might expect. There are no cameos from the original and only one brief throwback (in the form of DOT, the barrel o’ sensors). So by and large, what Twisters does is introduce a new cast of characters that rush headlong into the vorex of a second ‘once in a lifetime’ storm outbreak.

Sharknado, anyone?

And lets be honest here…anyone breezing into the theater to see Twisters is already suspending disbelief to it’s justifiable limits. If you watched Twister (1996) then you already have come to grips with that. It’s fine. We’re fine. Hollywood has asked us to suspend them further than this. They gave us Sharknado, right? Multiple times. Like 6 times. We’ll be fine.

So we’re already mentally invested in the spectacle of Twisters. Extreme weather is the star of this blow-show. But we still need a human element to become invested, to make this movie a true blockbuster.

Enter Kate (played fairly vanilla by Daisy Edgar-Jones), a plucky storm-chaser in her careless youth turned meek and tortured city-dweller because of those darned tornadoes. When she is contacted by another tortured survivor of her early days, Kate leaves the security of NYC and its zero-tolerance for tornadoes (almost) to return to where it all began…Tornado Alley.

Suspension of disbelief 2.0

Upon returning to her old stomping grounds to battle the second once-in-a-lifetime storm outbreak, Kate runs into Tyler Owens, a YouTube storm-chasing superstar who makes his living driving his Dodge Ram truck into the heart of the maelstrom and anchoring it to the earth with twin augers. Never mind that an average tornado can shred steel or wrap it around a tree like it was a welcome home ribbon. But we’re still fine here. It’s not a flying apex predator, after all.

Tyler Owens (played by the insanely charismatic Glen Powell) is the real human show-stopper here. That dude is magnetic in a way that you just don’t see much of anymore. I’m told by the greatest generation that Cary Grant had it. Ryan Reynolds almost has it. But Glen Powell? It’s just not fair. Seriously, Glen. Save some for the rest of us.

To make the obvious comparison

Twisters takes the same dirt road that Twister did, pitting high-tech storm-chasers against the home-grown thrill-seekers (Tyler is dubbed ‘the Tornado Wrangler’). Kate seems to be channeling both Bill Paxton (RIP, my dude) and Helen Hunt from the original, and not quite getting the job done. Amazing supporting cast members like Philip Seymore Hoffman (RIP, my dude), Alan Ruck (‘the Rabbit is good, the Rabbit is wise!’) and Jami Gertz (‘We got cows!’) are nowhere to be found in Twisters. No, the weight of rizz is carried alone by Powell. And he does so. Nearly effortlessly. I think that’s just part of the gift he has.

Twisters doesn’t blow

Okay, there was another ovious headline. Sue me.

It’s definitely worth noting that Twisters does not bow to the alarmists of the world and blame everything on climate change. At least, not overtly. I counted twice that the movie stated storms are happening more frequently every year (there are some statistics to support that, though not this year). I find that refreshing and a bit surprising. Bravo to Director Lee Isaac Chung for make the conscious decision to not go that route and just let us have some fun. The Average Dude Abides.

And I may have been a tad long-winded but The Average Dude is giving Twisters a solid 4.2, totally worth your two hours and corn. My theater was packed, and that’s a good sign. Blockbusters are still a thing. I imagine Twisters will have a decent box next week, if only for the folks that tried to get Deadpool and Wolverine tickets but they were sold out. Two blockbusters in a row. Maybe cinema isn’t dead yet.

In the end, going to see Twisters is satisfying in the way that any of the latest crop of Godzilla v Kong movies (minus Minus One) is satisfying. We willingly throw science right out the Dodge Ram window and feel the winds. You know what this is going in. Anything more than that is just bonus. And we’re fine with that.

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