Twisters Review

I was pretty excited for this movie. Not because I've seen the original Twister, I haven't. But because it is a disaster movie. And I've only seen one other disaster movie in my life is the cinematic masterpiece Moonfall. (Wait, do we count Kaiju movies? Some of them are kinda like disaster movies.) Also, like all of my coworkers went to go see this movie as soon as they could. I was not expecting that kind of anticipation from them for this movie. Needless to say, my expectations were pretty high going into this movie.

What's This Movie About?

Kate is a climatologist who thinks she found a way to disrupt a tornado, and she gets a chance when her friend brings her on to a team attempting to get a 3D model of a tornado. However, a rival tornado chasing team lead by a sexy cowboy has her rethinking her perspective on the situation. 

What I Like.

Pretty much the whole movie, honestly. It's silly and kinda crazy, but it's got good actors playing good characters in a good script. I like both the leads, and there's a great scene that goes into Kate's backstory that lets Daisy Edgar-Jones really act. I also like the Javi character, but Anthony Ramos is really charming so I'd probably like anything he does. The YouTuber characters seemed really annoying in the trailer, and they have their moments where they are funny. The plot is dumb but hides it really well. When you boil it down, it's basically that the Tornado Whisperer has found a way to kill tornados, but they bullshit the science well enough that my non-meteorologist brain was like, "Yeah, that makes sense." They way the clouds and tornadoes look is very impressive. They do a lot of shots of the clouds from above, or of funnel clouds forming and it looks really cool. The devastation the storms cause is also crazy impressive. The movie almost becomes Game of Thrones with how many death there are. They movie even treats the storms like they are monsters, and everyone talks like it chose to destroy these towns or kill these people. It was darkly funny. And all the deaths aren't crowds of nameless extras either, I think everyone who dies has at least a moment of characterization to help the audience connect with them. And then they get sucked away. It was kinda dumb that no Warning sirens go off until it's way too late to seek shelter, and they people in Oklahoma don't know how to properly keep trying to drive away from tornados, but it keeps the action up and eventually I just completely forgot about it. 

What I Don't Like.

So this is a weird new complaint. This movie kinda liberal-washes Oklahoma. Like, no one has guns. There's a part where Kate goes back home in the middle of the night, and her mom comes down without realizing it's her, and I expected that the movie was gonna make a joke where her mom has a shotgun and points it at Kate before being like "Oh, you scared me sweetie!" but they just don't do it. The movie also almost admits that climate change exists, which could have been a topical and interesting point, but everyone instead acknowledges that inclement weather has been getting worse and then just accepts that it's happening. The trailer kinda spoils a twist, but it's pretty obvious in the movie anyway. Finally, I didn't care for half the music. Not that it's badly used or mismatching the situations they use it in, it's just pop country shlock that I hate and all sounds the same to me. The kind of songs that are about the singer's ex-wife leaving him and taking his pick up truck, but he's from [INSERT SOUTHERN US STATE] and he's go a cold beer so he still loves Jesus. 

Final Summation.

Much like the Tornado Wranglers themselves, Twisters is a wild ride and a lot of fun! I think I might be a disaster movie fan and I just don't realize it. The same day, my coworker friend told me about a movie called The Core which is all about people trying to restart the earth's magma core with nukes. That sounds fucking ridiculous and I am 100 percent on board.