'Twisters' movie review: Glen Powell wrestles tornadoes with charm and spectacle

A endearingly cowboy Glen Powell and angry tornadoes do their jobs in “Twisters,” though the kinda-sorta disaster sequel with a big heart and bigger wind gusts may not blow you away.

Nearly 30 years after Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt played storm-chasing exes working out their issues amid hazardous weather and flying cows, another “Twister” rolls in with Powell and Daisy Edgar-Jones as the leads who flirt with high winds and bad decisions – and just flirt. Directed by Lee Isaac Chung, “Twisters” (★★½ out of four; rated PG-13; in theaters Friday) is a monster truck of a summer movie, an often-enjoyable ride rocking a “Hell yeah, science rules!” bumper sticker that gets stuck in muddy subplots and looking at the original in its rear-view mirror.

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Like the 1996 film, “Twisters” begins with trauma and tragedy: Five years after losing most of her college research team to a super-sized tornado, Kate (Edgar-Jones) has bailed from her native Oklahoma and is working as a meteorologist in New York City. The only other survivor of their group, Javi (Anthony Ramos), shows up bearing new technology that potentially lets them study tornadoes in a way never before possible, plus maybe help some people escape catastrophe along the way.

Uncannily able to “see” a tornado develop – much like Paxton’s character in the first “Twister” – Kate agrees to go back to Oklahoma to help Javi's science squad track funnel clouds during a “once in a generation” outbreak of tornadoes. They’re not the only ones, and the loudest of the lot is a lively, bro-y crew from Arkansas − led by red-blooded man’s man Tyler (Powell) − that livestreams the windswept chaos.

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One of Javi’s bunch dismisses them as “hillbillies with a YouTube channel,” and Kate is wary of Tyler’s whole self-confident deal. But she discovers there’s more to him than a cowboy hat and a Cheshire-cat grin, he figures out she’s more than a “city girl,” and her brains and his gumption wind up being a good match as they embark on a game-changing science project. You just know, however, that these gnarly tornadoes aren’t going to make anything easy.

Don’t go looking for a lot of connective thread between the two films (aside from a shared adoration of “The Wizard of Oz”). “Twisters” is more interested in following the first’s formula, a little too much. Having storms that get progressively more calamitous is a welcome carryover: Although the CGI “Twister” cyclones had more personality, roaring like malevolent menaces, the new ones aren’t too shabby when it comes to destruction. There’s a rodeo scene in particular that really drives home that deadly realism.

The competitiveness between Kate and Javi’s brainiacs and Tyler’s hotshots is meant to reflect that of Paxton and Hunt vs. villainous Cary Elwes in “Twister.” It doesn’t make a ton of sense since the latter was two science teams essentially trying to test the same gadget, while the nerds and the daredevils should be able to coexist because their goals are different. The appealing supporting cast in those groupings, including “Love Lies Bleeding” standout Katy O’Brian and new movie Superman David Corenswet, get overshadowed by wide plot turns and the evolving Kate/Tyler dynamic. (Old-school "Twister" fans, keep an eye out for Paxton's son, James, who has a small role as a motel customer caught up in the mayhem of a devastating windstorm.)

While the “His Girl Friday” vibe of Paxton and Hunt fuels the first “Twister,” the opposites-attract rom-com-iness with Powell and Edgar-Jones is less exciting, though they match wits and complementary energies well. After crafting a powerful and intimate Asian family drama in “Minari,” Chung doesn’t seem like the first or even second choice for a tornado-filled pop-science thriller. Yet he knows exactly how to build the blossoming relationship of his leads without being overly cheesy or romantic. 

“Twisters” tries to live up to its blockbuster predecessor with spectacle but is best when harnessing its own warmth – and we’re not talking about the very cool fire tornado. It offers up a rousing mindset (as Tyler says, “You don’t face your fears, you ride ‘em”) and, with surprisingly empathetic characters, winds up being more interested in helping the world than wrecking it.