55003: Twisters

In May of 1996, I went to see the original Twister on opening day, at our local mall. Did I mention it was 1996? Well, since we rolled in only 20 minutes early, the only seats available were front row center. Did I mention we were in Oklahoma? It's hard to overstate just how big of a deal Twister was for the state, and why my friends and I happily crammed into those godawful seats, which did not recline, and craned our necks back to take in the majesty of Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt fighting Tornadius, the angry God of Tornados, or whatever that movie was about. To be honest, I don't remember much about the plot, except there was a flying cow and possibly another flying cow and Cary Elwes was a villain? But whatever, it's a classic. The details don't matter. What matters is how it makes you feel. Twister made you feel the thundering murder wind that is a tornado, in your soul. It was visceral, and powerful, and uplifting in a terribly dangerous way. Nature jams down the gas pedal and we're all going for a ride, whether we like it or not. And that's pretty much the ethos driving Twisters.

Twisters is a hell of a ride. The special effects for the many, many, storms we see are spot on. I could practically smell the dirt in the air and feel the hair on my arms raising as the wind changed onscreen. It felt like Oklahoma in the spring and summer (except for the many people I saw wearing flannel outside, which is definitely how you get heat stroke), and made me nostalgic for the all the hours I spent in my youth, watching Gary England and Mike Morgan dissecting and discussing all the storm cells that rolled through our state.

The cast was equally electric, driven by a triangle of Daisy Edgar-Jones, Glen Powell, and Anthony Ramos. Edgar-Jones explores PTSD and survivors' guilt, and the terrible burden of being the smartest person in the room. Powell has obvious fun peeling off the layers of bravado and showmanship around the smart and sensitive weather savant at the heart of his character. Also he has a wet t-shirt scene that felt like a contractual obligation, I'm just not sure for whose contract. Ramos is, by default, put into the role of straight man to counterbalance the other two. Also, he wears a polo shirt tucked into light khakis for much of the film, and that screams "straight man" like nobody's business.

So let's recap: we've got believable, bloodthirsty storms, fields of waving wheat for them to descend upon, and an attractive bunch of young persons in big trucks, ready to livestream video from the epicenter or do weather science or whatever. Aside from a giant bucket of popcorn, what else do you need? If that's all that the movie has to offer, I'd say you should take that offer.

But wait, there's more. There's also some light social commentary on nature and climate change. We get to see the strength of small town communities. And, for what it's worth, there's a subplot about a scummy businessman coming in after the storms and buying up land from tornado victims who can't afford to rebuild. It mirrors what happened/is happening in Lahaina following the devastating fires of 2023, and also harkens back to the shady way that Oklahoma became a state in the first place. I also loved the sly reference to classic monster movies, and the connection filmmakers drew between tornados and silver screen icons like Frankenstein's monster and Godzilla. It takes a lot of swagger to make a claim that bold, the kind of swagger Glen Powell's hunky character, Tyler, might sum up in a nonsensical catchphrase like those he spouts in the movie.

I doubt that Twisters will necessarily be as revered as those classics, but maybe it should be. Last summer, I was in Oklahoma City, visiting someone in the hospital. As I was riding the elevator down to the cafeteria, and the doors opened up on two young people in neck braces, slings, wrist braces, and head stabilizers. They were covered in so many cuts and bruises it looked like a bear had attacked them while they were being attacked by another, angrier bear. Someone on the elevator said, "Whoa, car crash?" The woman turned her eyes to him, with obvious strain, and let out one word through her wired jaw: "Tornado."

Twisters are crazy and frightening and, despite all the science we throw at them, still unpredictable enough to maim and kill people who are constantly on watch for them. If that's not a monster worthy of transformation into an enduring IP, I don't know what is.