The legacy sequel is a genre in itself at this point. Since 2015’s one-two punch of Jurassic World and Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the ingredients have become baked in.
The recipe is this: first, superficially refurbish your template film in the script stage, and treat your laziness as reverence – bonus points if your new characters obsess over their forebears. Next, recruit an inexperienced indie director who will lose the intimate charm of their low-budget work and give the whole thing a digital Netflix-original sheen, and then round up a host of up-and-comers who all will seem like they’re auditioning for bigger things.
Only one film in that genre – Top Gun: Maverick – has managed to surpass its predecessor, thanks primarily to star Tom Cruise willing it so. It’s unsurprising, then, that Twisters, the second film from Minari filmmaker Lee Isaac Chung from a story by Maverick director Joseph Kosinski, recruits Cruise’s Maverick co-star and protege Glen Powell to try to do the same.
I won’t leave you waiting in suspense. Twisters does not reach the heights of the 1996 original – not even close. But there are bright spots, several of its stars shine (Powell among them), and the film chugs along merrily and never falls apart, though you might start checking your phone by act three. It will be a fine but forgettable time at the theatre, and will likely make an excellent plane movie. But the problem with a nostalgia play is it’s hard to not think about all we’ve lost and how little we’ve gained.
The 1996 film Twister, directed by Jan de Bont and written by Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park) and Anne-Marie Martin and starring Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt, is a classic that hides in plain sight. Following a group of tornado researchers as they risk their lives chasing storms, it was the second highest-grossing film of 1996, and was one of the first films released on DVD. It’s the kind of great that was taken for granted at the time but shines upon revisit.
Experience helps, it turns out. De Bont helmed Speed a couple of years earlier, and was the director of photography on Die Hard, Hunt for Red October and Basic Instinct. The Crichton co-written script is a lesser work than his Jurassic Park, but is excellent in all the same ways, full of palpably human characters whose passion for science leads them nearly to their own demise.
That’s probably why de Bont gives a Spielbergian touch to his work in Twister – kinetic camera work that leans into the dust-bowl grit, balancing intimate close-ups of its stars and stunning wide shots of tornados that are full of foreboding beauty and awe.
Twisters seemingly goes for all of that, but never hits the mark. It follows a new generation of storm chasers, led by Kate Carter (Normal People’s Daisy Edgar-Jones), a traumatised meteorologist trying to get back on the horse, and Tyler Owens (Powell), a brash YouTuber with more scientific bona-fides than he lets on.
Conspicuously, there is one major aspect of the legacy sequel missing here. There’s no mention or appearance of Bill Paxton or Helen Hunt’s characters, nor the supporting cast. The only guest spot is the late Paxton’s son James, who cameos as a disgruntled motel guest.
There’s a likely reason for this – Hunt had pitched her own Twister sequel around the same time that this film was given the green light with Blindspotting’s Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal, which would have focused on an “all black and brown” group of storm chasers. Universal passed.
Powell is the best thing about this film, and while he’s not Cruise (who else could be?), his earnest and humble attempts to follow in his footsteps make you root for him rather than resent him. His trademark grin assures the likable arrogance lands well – that we saw in Maverick – but his best quality may be his ability to project love and admiration for his female co-stars whenever he stops speaking – that bit is in his eyes.
Unfortunately, Jones isn’t up to the task of balancing the ticket. She’s an out-of-sight-out-of-mind lead, and a lot of the film’s failure to connect comes down to her inability to bring us in.
To be fair, some of this might be due to the script and direction, which make moments that should hit like a gut punch instead graze lightly. When people die in this film, they simply drift away into the wind, and that’s exactly how it feels for us too. But Powell transcends these failures, while Jones isn’t able to.
The supporting cast, on the other hand, make an impression in limited screen time, and are a genuine highlight. It’s an achievement of casting more than anything else, as actors such as Sasha Lane (American Honey), Katy O’Brian (Love Lies Bleeding) and Tunde Adebimpe (lead singer of the band TV on the Radio) all charm, and since they all feel like people you may meet in real life, they are what stops the film from feeling entirely AI-generated.
I’m coming down hard on a perfectly fine piece of summer entertainment, I know. But it’s hard not to when I can remember the way the first made me feel as if it were yesterday, and the sequel had already left my mind by the time I’d walked to my car.
Twisters is now in cinemas across the Middle East
