By Dwight Brown
NNPA Film Critic
(***1/2) It’s like you’re chasing tornados from the front seat of a roller coaster.
Watching this big tent disaster movie in a cinema is fun. In an IMAX theater it’s even more amazing. But the ultimate immersion experience is viewing, hearing and feeling the whirling winds from a seat in a 4D theater. It’s a form of presentation that combines synchronized physical effects with what’s on screen. You’re transported by motion, vibration, scents, rain, mists, fog, smoke, wind, temperatures and strobe lights. Those effects are being served with the popcorn at the world’s largest 4D auditorium, the Regal Times Square, New York City. There are 790 more 4D playhouses across the globe.
Twenty-eight years ago, the original 1996 action/adventure film Twister garnered $490M+ at the box office with actors Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton chasing destructive vortexes of violent rotating winds shaped like funnels. Now a new generation gets the fever. This version, unlike its predecessor, doesn’t have an expert action-movie director like Jan de Bont (Speed) at its helm. Wisely the producers hired indie filmmaker Lee Issac Chung (Oscar nominee 2021 Best Achievement in Directing and Best Original Screenplay for Minari) to give this autonomous sequel a more human approach. It’s a brilliant move.
Pulling from a very gregarious and friend-orientated script by Mark L. Smith (The Revenant), with a story originated by Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski, Chung sets up the characters first, and then the audience experiences their journey, relationships, families and love lives. By the time the tornados show up, you’re so invested in the participants that everything works in concert. Inquisitive, adventurous people in jeopardy. Violent natural phenomena. Mass destruction. Hopes for the future. This isn’t your typical, generic, paint-by-numbers big-budget Hollywood film. Chung shows style and heart.
As a meteorology student Kate Carter (Daisy Edgar Jones, Where the Crawdads Sing) had great ambitions. Tame tornados and save lives. Her initial ambitious work, on the plains of Oklahoma, with a fellow colleague Javi (Anthony Ramos, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts) ended in a catastrophe when a tornado proved to be more powerful and deadly than they could have fathomed. Five years later, traumatized by that tragedy, Kate is in New York working in an office with weather forecasters. Still in the game but far removed from the playing field. Until her old pal Ravi shows up, drafting her into a project that could be a life-saving tracking system.
Kate heads back to the South-Central region. These days the field of cloud chasers has expanded with all sorts of curious folks. Including the self-centered social-media darling Tyler Owens (Glen Powell, Top Gun: Maverick)—aka the Tornado Wrangler. With his face constantly on camera as he streams his exploits to millions of YouTube fans, he and his wild, publicity-hungry crew are the antithesis of Kate, Javi and their mission. The two disparate teams compete, give each other misinformation and throw lots of shade. Is there room enough on the tornado trail for both groups?
The most wonderful aspect of the script and the director’s approach is that you can’t guess where the characters are going. Not their direction in life, relationships, careers or incentives. Often what you think will happen gets blindsided with a different reality.
Distinguishing the good from the bad guys becomes tricky. Motives are deceptive, unsettled and unpredictable. A constant stream of surprise subplots keeps the film fresh for 1h 57m solid (editor Terilyn A. Shropshire, The Woman King).
Though great attention and detail has been bestowed on the characters and their arcs, the action/adventure/thriller aspects of this disaster movie are just as weighty. Visually and auditorily the effects are top notch. The wondrous shots, especially the overheads, by cinematographer Dan Mindel (Star Wars: Episode VII- The Force Awakens) pull you into central Oklahoma. Interior sets from old garages to fancy NYC offices are appropriate (production designer Patrick Sullivan), the colors vibrant (art director Steve Christensen) and everyone is dressed like normal people (costume designer Eunice Jera Lee). When orchestra music crescendos and adds umph to the danger it also heightens emotions (composer Benjamin Wallfisch, Blade Runner 2049). All is capped by eye-popping special, visual and sound effects that make rain and wind look and sound like a monster.
There’s a magical salute to film and cinemas when a movie theater becomes a shelter—a place to hide from the windy hell above. There are many daring escapes, victims sucked into updrafts and instances when the storm chasers are close to death. But the iconic visual that film lovers may love the most is the moment when Tyler tries to hold on to a crewmember who is being sucked away, out into the sky, to her doom. Hard to forget this image as it reinforces the notion that theaters are sanctuaries. Places of refuge. So why are so many closing these days?!
The British actor Edgar-Jones makes Kate feel like an “everywoman.” Like you know her. It’s an endearing quality and the result of a very natural performance. One that displays deep emotions from happiness and sadness to fear. That introspective interpretation of the prime protagonist is the exact opposite of Powell’s boisterous portrayal of the carnival barker Tyler Owens, who challenges her: “You don’t face your fears, you ride ‘em.” Again, because the script is so surprising, Owens’ character becomes far more complex than his initial presentation. Ramos makes Javi the soul-searching man who’s pulled in right and wrong directions. Veteran actor Maura Tierney (ER) as Kate’s mom displays the right amount of humor and determination. The entire, multicultural, multigeneration cast is superb as it supports the lead roles.
Following up an iconic blockbuster movie isn’t easy. Yet Minari makes it look like a breeze. Credit his charming storyteller instincts and keen sensibility for depicting people struggling with inner and outer turmoil. Movie lovers of all ages will rush to their local cineplexes for this summer blockbuster. A film many will see over and over well into its afterlife on streaming services and network TV.
Twisters will be revered in theaters and IMAX places. But the ultimate immersive experience will come in 4D theaters. That’s where rooms full of gleeful audiences will twist and shout.
Visit Film Critic Dwight Brown at DwightBrownInk.com.
