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“Twisters” Revives Disaster Genre with Human Connection | Review

The hurricane isn't just a special effect; the catastrophe impacts people. Lee Isaac Chung talks about climate change without naming it, denounces the exploitation of tragedy, and highlights the need for a supportive network.
Daisy Edgar-Jones, Anthony Ramos, and Glen Powell in Twisters

MOVIE REVIEWS

Twisters (2024)
Directed by Lee Isaac Chung

Beyond its sociological and cultural resonances, the disaster film marked the ’90s primarily for its ability to experiment with unprecedented special effects, staging the fears of ordinary people and reaffirming the myth of heroism both in adventure and ingenuity. We remember Twister mainly for its technological marvel, with hurricanes to chase and a flying cow. In resurrecting and renewing a title that hasn’t spawned a franchise but remained in our collective memory twenty-eight years later, producers and authors realized the added value couldn’t reside solely in CGI, which in its perfection, no longer astonishes. The heart lies in human relationships, asserting a sense of community, and the hope that the future can be better through science, study, courage, and trust.

This is where Twisters originates, initially launched with Joseph Kosinski as director (he remains as the story’s creator; Helen Hunt, the original star, offered to develop a sequel but was turned down) and then ended up in the hands of Lee Isaac Chung, the director of Minari. This choice makes perfect sense, especially considering that behind this “revival” (or rather: a “stand-alone,” a product unto itself, a bit of a sequel and a bit of a reboot, yet neither) is always Steven Spielberg, the guardian of these blockbusters that combine the human element and technological spectacle, as well as align with the film that made the Asian-American director famous: the centrality of family, empathy as a vocation, the child’s perspective, the right to cultivate the American dream, and the conflict between man and nature.

These themes don’t burden Twisters but rather enhance it: they add depth to the characters, provide their pasts to give substance to their futures, and weave into the social fabric of the landscape, reminding us that a hurricane is not just a toy for the audience but a synonym for destruction. This reflection underpins the film: on one side is meteorologist Kate, a former storm chaser scarred by a devastating tornado encounter during her college years, contacted by her friend Javi to test an innovative tracking system; on the other is Tyler, an Arkansas cowboy who goes viral on social media for chasing and live-streaming storms to country music. On one side, there’s study and pain; on the other, adventure and excitement.

In its own way, this is already a statement of intent: in a society that celebrates individualism and distrusts experts as “colluding” with the system, the hurricane becomes an attainable chimera, emptied of its destructive meaning and reduced to a real-world special effect. But this distinction is only superficial because the matter is less schematic than it seems, triggering a series of consequences that reflect on climate change without ever naming it, thus avoiding didactic pitfalls and remaining absolutely effective. Twisters brings realism back to the catastrophe, doesn’t shy away from showing death and destruction, denounces exploitation (the hypocrisy of scholars selling out to capitalist logic), and invites reconstruction (the supportive network of Tyler’s dropout followers).

Additionally, there’s the “enemies to lovers” trope that’s never invasive but even melancholic, with palpable (and quite chaste) chemistry between Daisy Edgar-Jones (whose leg scar symbolizes a wounded soul) and Glen Powell (always remarkable in roles that reveal more depth than they initially appear). And if the nods and references to the original Twister go beyond mere fan service, there is at least one memorable sequence where the townsfolk take refuge in a cinema, the screen gets sucked away, and the hurricane turns into a spectacle halfway between live news and the Lumière brothers’ train. Ah, American cinema.

Lorenzo Ciofani

Cinematografo, July 17, 2024

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