Twisters

In cinemas now

Lee Isaac Chung’s Twisters could well be one of the most polarising films of the year. On the one hand, it is an action flick that proudly wears its Spielbergian influences on its sleeve and is subsequently big on spectacle. On the other, it is an implausibly dumb affair whose love letter to the overt patriotism of rural America could be construed as being more than a little tone-deaf, given the tribal nature of the ongoing election campaign. 

Having endured over two hours of screenwriter Mark L. Smith’s psychobabble and unashamed expositioning, I’m firmly in the latter camp. Although there are moments where Twisters is a lot of fun, it is for the most part a staggeringly stupid affair that requires its audience to leave all logic and reasoning at the door. After all, how else could you seriously engage with a film that is centred on a group of storm chasers and their attempts to ‘tame a tornado’ by firing a sodium polyacrylate solution into it?

Admittedly, Chung’s fastidious approach to recreating the turbulent conditions associated with Twisters’ topic - which included shooting during Oklahoma’s tornado season - is admirable and ensures the film’s dependency on special effects is not overly apparent. Alas, Smith’s wretched dialogue and conventional approach to storytelling overpowers this and leaves an otherwise impressive cast with little to chew on. In the case of the latter, this is a shame as the chemistry between co-leads Daisy Edgar-Jones and Glen Powell is at least somewhat palatable, despite their near 10-year age gap.