Monday Movie Mania - Twisters

While Twisters is supposed to be a stand-alone sequel to 1996's Twister, it feels like a very different movie. The emotion is deeper. It reflects the changes in society over the last twenty-eight years from the characters livestreaming their adventure on social media to the lack of a kiss between heroine and hero during the final scene. The story still relies on survivor's guilt as the motivating factor for the heroine, but emotionally, it goes in a very different direction.

*****

SPOILERS

*****

PROS
1) Like I said above, Twisters has a bit more emotional depth. Kate loses most of her team including her boyfriend when their suspected F1 unexpectedly grows into an F5. Unlike Jo in the original movie, Kate withdraws from stormchasing until her only surviving team member Javi approaches her for a one-week stint with his new company to help prove his new tornado scanning equipment works in the field.

2) All the main characters are a little younger, and a little less-seasoned than in the original. The story leans more to a coming-of-age. All the characters hit that bitter moment when they realize they can't control everything in their lives.

3) While the effects are great, they don't overshine the story like they did in the orginal movie.

4) One of the reasons we went to see the movie was Glen Powell. Our first introduction to him was as John Glenn in Hidden Figures. Here, his character Tyler is an apparent attention whore with a YouTube channel. But again, no character here is one-dimensional. Sure, he sells t-shirts, but he uses the proceeds to get water and food to survivors.

5) The augers on Tyler's truck to keep it on the ground during a tornado was a clever idea.

6) There's not a whole lot of clever one-liners. For me, that's a plus when dealing eith a weather event that can kill people.

7) The bad guy in this case is Javi's investor who buys up the land and homes ravaged by tornadoes on the cheap.

8) My favorite part--the girl made the sacrifice to save the town at the end!


CONS
1) While the augers might work on a pickup from the '60's or '70's, I doubt it would work with a modern truck. Trucks today have too much plastic, which is great for gas mileage but wouldn't keep the passengers safe from the tornado debris pounding into the truck.

2) I know the producers, etc., were trying to avoid politics by not mentioning climate change, but it's not a political issue. It's happening, like it or not. I live in the very nortwest tip of Tornado Alley. Land scoured flat by the glaciers from the Ice Age. We had seven tornadoes touch down in our county in FEBRUARY! People need to take this shit seriously!

Overall, I give Twisters 10 out of 10 stars. In a lot of ways it's a much better movie than it's predecessors.