122 min | PG-13 | July 19, 2024 | Universal Pictures
The sequel to Twister that nobody expected delivers summer blockbuster thrills with genuine craft. Glen Powell is a movie star. Daisy Edgar-Jones grounds the spectacle. The tornadoes are terrifying.
Kate Carter is a former storm chaser haunted by a disastrous field experiment that killed members of her team. She is working a desk job at the National Weather Service when she gets pulled back into the field. Tyler Owens is a social media storm chaser who drives into tornadoes with a camera crew and posts the footage for millions of followers. They represent two philosophies of chasing. She wants to understand storms. He wants to perform for them. The film uses their friction as the engine for a disaster movie that earns its spectacle.
Daisy Edgar-Jones plays Kate with the specific intelligence of a scientist who respects what she studies. The trauma is real and Edgar-Jones plays it without melodrama. Glen Powell plays Tyler with the swagger and grin of a man who knows he is putting on a show and loves every minute of it. Powell is a genuine movie star and this film proves it. The chemistry between them is not forced. It builds through mutual respect. Anthony Ramos plays Kate’s colleague Javi with complicated loyalty. Brandon Perea, Sasha Lane, and Katy O’Brian fill out the chasing teams with personality.
Lee Isaac Chung directed Minari. The jump from a quiet family drama to a disaster blockbuster is enormous and Chung handles it with surprising confidence. The tornado sequences are the best ever put on screen. They are loud and terrifying and physically real in ways that CGI spectacle rarely achieves. Chung shoots Oklahoma with the eye of someone who grew up in the Midwest and understands its beauty and its danger. The sound design is immersive. The destruction is staged with consequences. Buildings collapse. People get hurt. The film respects the power of what it depicts.
This is a summer movie that does what summer movies are supposed to do. It puts you in a theater and makes you feel something bigger than yourself. The original Twister was a product of its time. This one is better. Chung brings character work to a genre that usually abandons it. Powell and Edgar-Jones give the film a human center that the tornadoes circle around without destroying.