Movie Review: Twisters is simply amazing and nostalgic entertainment
The decade of the ’90s meant the boom of summer blockbusters in cinema, the industry invested millions of dollars in family entertainment that filled entire theaters around the world, being a success whatever was presented on the big screen.
Productions in various film genres and great box office hits such as Home Alone (1990), Pretty Woman (1990), Point Break (1991), Silence of the Lambs (1991), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), Batman Returns (1992) ), Basic Instinct (1992), Schindler List (1992), Jurassic Park (1993), Forrest Gump (1994), Heat (1995), Twister (1996), Scream (1996), Titanic (1997), The Big Lebowski ( 1998) and The Blair Witch Project (1999) are the main exponents that in that decade entertainment reached a new level.
With excellent original plots, film adaptations of novels or comics, natural disasters, serial killers, criminals, dinosaurs, and maritime disasters, accompanied by innovative and spectacular special effects, there was nothing that the industry could not bring to the big screen by making everything unreal was possible in a real world where it seemed that things would not change or even if they did it was to enrich and improve.
One of them stood out for its simple plot, its very good dose of action, its six protagonists, and for having a very different approach to what can happen every year in the American Union, Twister quickly became a box office success. , there was a lot of talk about having one or several sequels that would explore these scientists and their project to detect tornadoes and thus be able to avoid disasters, this never materialized at the time, there was talk of a television series that also never went beyond being an idea and was As the years passed, all this was discarded and presumably forgotten.
In 2024 after 28 years of many arguments and speculations without a concrete basis, Twisters by director Lee Isaac Chung hits the screens around the world, a film that defines itself not as a remake or a continuation but as a new chapter in something that could revive interest in continuing to tell more things in a new franchise.
What is the movie about?
After a devastating tornado event, Kate (Daisy Edgar-Jones) returns to the open plains with her friend Javi (Anthony Ramos) to test a new and innovative tornado tracking system, which is where they cross paths with Tyler Owens (Glen Powell). ) a charming and reckless social media superstar who gets excited about posting his storm-chasing adventures to keep his followers happy, as tornado season intensifies Kate, Javi, and Tyler find themselves in a fight with their rivals and the tornadoes which leads them to question whether all this dangerous adventure and popularity is worth more than their own lives.
We have said a lot about how unoriginal the ideas are now in the film industry to present things that are liked by locals and strangers, or that this saves it from an imminent bankruptcy that has been occurring in the studios, advocating for Nostalgia is a very comfortable comfort zone in which these productions have been for several years now and in all their various genres, the remake is a way of justifying that every idea that is stolen from past successes can be modernized for the new generations, an extremely stupid idea if we consider that Gone with the Wind from 1939 remains and will continue to be a classic in the history of cinema that does not need continuations or remakes, much less be modernized.
If we rely on the above, expanding franchises from which much more was expected at the time has not been a good idea either, we have already seen what has happened with Ghostbusters: Answer the Call (2016), Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021) and Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024) that have not and will not be able to emulate the success of their first film, and this may be due among other things to the fact that only veterans might be interested in seeing something from these sagas again, the main problem is the step of time that no matter how much they try to modernize them, the idea of entertainment has changed.
Twister was a surprise and a novelty in the natural disaster genre, the film has a script written by Michael Crichton and Anne-Marie Martin that tells the story of meteorologist Dr. Jo Harding (Helen Hunt) and her soon-to-be ex. husband William “Bill” Harding (Bill Paxton), in one of their meetings for the divorce signing Bill learns that Jo has built four identical devices for the study of tornadoes called DOROTHY, based on the original designs that he already had and He asks Jo to show them, revealing that the device is designed to release hundreds of sensors at the center of a tornado to study its structure from the inside and thus be able to create a more advanced and efficient detection system, to give an alert. to the population in danger of a tornado in an estimated time of approximately fifteen minutes, instead of the almost obsolete warning system that warns less than three minutes before a tornado arrives, even predicting where it will go next.
A material that seemed to be a gold mine but that represents years of research for Jo after her traumatic encounter with one when she was 5 years old. From this, we could know with more certainty how the classification of tornadoes, the Fujita-Pearson Scale, works. , also called the Fujita Scale, is the scale that measures and classifies the intensity of a tornado and is based on the destruction caused to man-made structures and their environment, a scale that is not based on the size, diameter, or speed of the tornado. tornado but is based on the damage caused, the official evaluation of the damage is carried out by meteorologists and civil engineers who rely on some auxiliary means of damage evaluation with radar tracking, visual testimonies, journalistic reports, photogrammetry, and videogrammetry, a very characteristic investigation of Crichton for his scripts and novels, something that is based on reality to shape it into a fantastic story.
The scales used by the Fujita-Pearson Scale are:
- Category F0 with winds of 60-117 km/h (45-72 mph) Minor, where damage can range from branches torn off trees to shallow-rooted trees and damaged signs.
- Category F1 with winds of 117-181 km/h (73-112 mph) Moderate, these tornadoes can lift roofs or move cars and can even cause tides that sink small boats.
- Category F2 with winds of 181-250 km/h (113-157 mph) Considerable risk, the damage may be greater and more accentuated than in the previous category, lifting and destroying heavier structures.
- Category F3 with winds of 250-320 km/h (158-206 mph) Severe Risk, damage ranges from trees that can be uprooted, to walls and roofs of solid buildings.
- Category F4 with winds of 320-420 km/h (207-260 mph) Devastating risk, damage can cause derailments and lifting of 40-ton trucks in front.
- And finally the F5 category with winds of 420-510 km/h (261-308 mph). Extremely destructive, tornadoes with this intensity destroy everything in their path, which is one of those that we see at the beginning of the film.
We couldn’t leave the drama and adventure aside, Jo and Bill face not only tornadoes but a rival Dr. Jonas Miller (Cary Elwes), an ambitious and cocky meteorologist and storm and tornado chaser who tries to steal from them. the idea in the race to monetize this discovery, a confrontation that will lead him to discover that there may be stronger tornadoes than one of category F5, an antagonist that is very much at the level of a story between good guys and bad guys who have a common goal although the motivations of each one are completely different.
It is to be expected that after a series of action sequences where the waste of special effects was excellent and new for its time, these 2 central characters will finally be able to have the test they had been waiting for, DOROTHY IV works perfectly, displaying sensors and transmitting information to Jo’s team after this powerful tornado passes over them Bill and Jo find themselves inside the vortex of the gigantic funnel, being able to completely see the interior of the F5 category tornado, finally the tornado dissipates and Jo and Bill decide to create their research laboratory and reconcile their marriage.
A plot that, being very simple to explain and understand, gave much more at that time, the studios planned to make a sequel that would follow up on these adventures in which there would supposedly be tornadoes of categories higher than F5 endangering large cities, an idea that, although it sounds attractive, did not completely convince its producers Ian Bryce, Michael Crichton, Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall, Walter F. Parkes, Laurie MacDonald and Steven Spielberg himself and that is how this project lost steam and ended up being shelved. forgotten, in 2020 a new version of Twister was being developed using names such as Joseph Kosinski for direction, and Frank Marshall and Sara Scott as producers of the project, but in 2021 actress Helen Hunt was interested in developing a sequel of the original film but the studios rejected the proposal that she be the writer and director because supposedly her character would no longer have the same impact as a woman of action.
It was in 2023 when this project once again gained strength and shape, director Lee Isaac Chung was in charge of giving shape to a story written by Mark L. Smith that is a freer version of the original script and completely distances itself from the original to present something fairly new and updated that continues to advocate nostalgia, Twisters is the film that once again puts summer blockbusters in a new place and not as privileged as in past decades, thus demonstrating that works like this are only for entertain and have a pleasant time in a movie theater.
Twisters takes references from the first film without being as concrete as a sequel, now we see Kate who is a brilliant student and aspiring scientist in Oklahoma who is interested in the dangerous beauty of tornadoes and looking for a way to power understand and dominate all that destructive power, its opening sequence is impressive and heartbreaking that recounts the miscalculated case in the pursuit of a tornado that Kate herself leads and that cost the lives of two of her friends and collaborators on the project, this It is important that this should not remain just a plan but that if developed it can be very useful in the field of meteorology and the timely forecast of storms that cause tornadoes.
From this, we go 5 years after what happened, and in other circumstances, we already see the development of these characters, Kate is now a scientist, and Javi is a businessman who works for a real estate company, on the other hand, we have the famous Youtuber Tyler and his team who call themselves the tornado tamers and who take Ben (Harry Hadden-Paton), a British journalist, to the center of a storm for a report, Kate and Tyler meet in the middle of chaos, which gives rise to these 2 teams come together for a common goal, while Kate and Javi want to study the behavior of tornadoes Tyler and his team seek to have more fame on social networks, what will be certain is that one of the 2 sides will have to change their perspective and way of acting. think if they want to survive in a real and dangerous world outside social networks and stupid challenges.
Not everything is hunky dory and not everything is what it seems. Its main flaw is in an unoriginal plot by screenwriter Mark L. Smith in which it is completely based on the script of the previous one to make some subtle but significant changes, here it is no longer There is an antagonist as such and now he is replaced by a YouTuber to give it more modernity and attract new generations of viewers. The origins of the protagonists are very similar in their motivation for wanting to know more about tornadoes and how to study them. It is undeniable that now technology and CGI have advanced a lot in recent years resulting in a riot of sensational special effects.
The latter is not enough to finish specifying its story and its subplots, it is very cliché that from all this a romance arises between the protagonists in the middle of all the action, however we can see that its structure is similar if not the same as its predecessor, some shots are the same and we see that flying cow again, although they sell it to us as if this is a “new” chapter of “new” it has nothing that will surprise us beyond its special effects that They are clearly in favor of a poor and poorly made script.
It is inevitable not to realize that Twisters betrays itself and makes a serious mistake; it is inevitable fact of make comparisons between Edgar-Jones and Helen Hunt as the protagonists, while the first is based on a tragic event derived from a bad decision, the second faithfully believes that the study of tornadoes can avoid them in the long term, in the case of the first, his character becomes concrete and is also diluted with that moral discourse that we must face the consequences of our mistakes being love. the common thread of all her motivation along with friendship, teamwork, the power of women in the face of adversity, and blah blah blah that end up falling into annoyance and boredom, very unlike Hint who was a woman of action, someone with a firm idea and great charisma to face everything she is fighting for, not for personal good but for the good of everyone else, motivated by the fact that she does not want what happens to her to others. passed.
The approach that it gives us from the beginning that all this is nothing more than mere spectacular entertainment gives us the idea of knowing where things are going, they are its impressive special effects and photography which excites us and which in turn invites us to see this in a movie theater and live this whole experience because that’s what it was made for, once we understand this concept and context then we can say with certainty that this is the transformed return of a new type of innocuous and captivating entertainment as a Hollywood formula that aims to be more solid in the creation of new sagas and franchises.
Twisters as a film comes at a time when movie theaters desperately need a spectacular blockbuster that not only serves as instant entertainment but is up to the task of competing with other productions. We cannot say that it is a job with a bad result. , it is neither good nor bad, it is simply what it is, and it does what it can with what it has without falling completely into being an unnecessary sequel/continuation/new chapter, it has done what many others before but in a better way demonstrating Just as he is surprisingly adept at channeling his nostalgia into a spectacularly entertaining modern context.
What he tries to highlight here as “modernity” is the unhealthy interest he has in pitting experts against social media fans who play an important but not determining role in the plot, the plausible idea that online debates are what come to have more relevance and importance to those who are for or against by making caricatures of their characters, the idea that Michael Crichton had when he co-wrote the script for the original 1996 film had a basis with credible, half-mad scientists who developed great characters in a topic not explored in the cinema of those years.
In the end, it offers more than what it promises and punctually fulfills this without pretensions that it is something made to be more serious, fill movie theaters, and promote young actors within a project of action, drama, and romance that without having and requiring much. talent we know that they have the potential to at least sustain a film like this for 122 minutes, spectacular special effects, that if it works to be a new saga it is fine and if not also, it is aware in itself that it will not become a classic by any means. less but something that is there when there is nothing else to see.
The cast is made up of Daisy Edgar-Jones, Glen Powell, Anthony Ramos, Maura Tierney, Brandon Perea, Daryl McCormack, Sasha Lane, Kiernan Shipka, and Nik Dodani who do what they can with what they have, all they need is to be dramatic and funny in the moments that are required, everyone understands perfectly well that the protagonists here are the tornadoes and their special effects.
The music composed by Benjamin Wallfisch is very far from resembling what was done before by Mark Mancina, but it plays very well with the samples, creating new pieces that audiovisually meet what we expect at the level of an action film like this.
In conclusion, Twisters could have been very different, perhaps not better or worse on its own, and it is simply the rescue of a million-dollar idea from a decade in which summer cinema was more interesting and important for an industry that is increasingly losing strength in the face of the threat. to disappear, a product that entertains, excites and amuses by doing more than well but that will not go beyond being just that, an experiment that may or may not be functional in which no one ends up losing.
Twisters are already out in theaters in our country.
