Movie Review: Twisters

Uttering some variation of "They don't make movies like this anymore!" nearly every time Hollywood releases something that isn't a superhero movie or some Blumhouse-backed supernatural horror flick is becoming a cliche during the 2020's, but seriously when the fuck was the last time something like Twisters came out? Disaster movies have essentially turned into this relic of the 90's/00's following a string of misfires in the 2010's including Pompeii, The Finest Hours and Deepwater Horizon killed any interest the major studios had in regularly producing them. The last proper entry in the genre was 2020's Greenland and that didn't even get a theatrical release in most countries including the US on account of the COVID lockdowns and 2015's San Andreas is the only title in the past decade that went onto be a hit. Best of all, Twisters doesn't just mark a return to the disaster genre, it's about as good as anything that came out of it during its heyday.

What's particularly appealing about Twisters is how much of an old school blockbuster feel it has. It's the kind of film that you would see on HBO or TNT a zillion times and at least contemplate watching a few minutes of every time it showed up on the listings. There's no pre-existing knowledge of Twister required to watch it. No more than 3 characters from the ensemble of a dozen or so storm chasers the film follows are developed beyond a single personality trait, but it doesn't really matter since the actors playing them are able to make them likable or detestable. The storytelling and pacing are efficient to the point where not a single frame is wasted. All of the tornado sequences deliver a good amount of peril, destruction and pure entertaining spectacle. Is Twisters some kind of masterful achievement? Not at all, it's just the kind of sturdy, fun albeit unremarkable blockbuster filmmaking that we don't see very often anymore. Thank you to Lee Isaac Chung for making a movie that's nostalgic for a certain type of film instead of a specific IP. Your next big paycheck will be well-deserved and hopefully whoever writes it will grant you the space to make it the way you want to make it like Universal and WB did here.                   

Grade: B