Director: Lee Isaac Chung
Cast: Daisy Edgar-Jones, Glen Powell, Anthony Ramos, Brandon Perea, Maura Tierney, Sasha Lane
Screenplay: Mark L. Smith
117 mins. Rated PG-13 for intense action and peril, some language and injury images.

Movies come in all shapes and sizes, and now Lee Isaac Chung has taken on both ends of the spectrum, with the small and intimate Minari leading to the summer blockbuster sequel Twisters. I caught Minari at the very end of its awards-season run, and I absolutely adored the family drama, so I was infinitely more interested in Chung’s swap over to Twisters, sequel to a film that I appreciated but never really loved. The only question is whether or not Chung could translate those smaller intimate moments into the disaster epic, and I believe he has.

Years after losing friends to a tragic tornado experiment gone haywire, Kate Cooper (Fresh) has left the field behind, choosing a desk job at a NOAA office instead. When former colleague Javi (Anthony Ramos, A Star is Born) approaches her to join in testing a new piece of tornado detection and scanning tech, she takes on one week in Oklahoma during a once-in-a-generation series of tornado-based strikes.

For those going to Twisters for the…well, twisters (and hey, that’s all of us, right?), then I can happily report that the disaster sequences are all very well played out. The action and characters are mapped out and well-orchestrated, and the intensity occasionally made me forget I was just watching a movie (there’s a moment where most of the audience ducked from flying debris).

Chung finds ways to get smaller moments to pop with his main cast, including Jones and Glen Powell (Top Gun: Maverick), who plays “tornado-wrangler” Tyler Owens. These two have tremendous chemistry, and Jones in particular shines in the lead role.

I just wish the screenplay gave its supporting cast more to do. Outside of its main three characters, the supporting players are all rather stock. Tyler’s ragtag team is boiled down to being the disaster movie version of Woo Girls, just screaming excitedly for most of the film. With Katy O’Brien and Brandon Perea (Nope) in that group, it’s rather disappointing to give them nothing to do. The same can be said of future Superman David Corenswet, who does the most with his minimal character design, but there strictly isn’t much to mine from the script for him to use.

Outside of that, I’m torn on the music for the film. I really enjoyed Benjamin Wallfisch’s score for the film…when it’s playing. Unfortunately, so much of the needle drops in the soundtrack ended up being distractingly forced. I didn’t care for a single song in the film, and none of them really hit in the way Wallfisch’s music did whenever it appeared. Each song seemed to be committee chosen and none of them captured the intended effect for their placement. Give me more of that Wallfisch score!

Twisters is a lot of fun, and I personally find that I’m more likely to revisit this installment over its predecessor, and director Lee Isaac Chung gets a lot out of his lead characters, but the script is at times so paper-thin that a high wind would tear it in half. Still, it wins as what is has to, and predictability aside, I still enjoyed myself with this crowd-pleasing disaster film, which hopefully could lead to a return of the subgenre.

3/5
-Kyle A. Goethe