By John Corrado

In 1996, audiences were taken into the world of “storm chasers” in the summer blockbuster Twister, a film that used the dramatic effects of severe weather to drum up excitement, while grounding itself in the relationships between a group of characters.

Since legacy sequels are all the rage these days, we now have a belated follow up in the appropriately named Twisters, directed by Lee Isaac Chung. While Chung, who is coming off his quiet, Oscar-winning family drama Minari, might seem like an odd pairing for the material, he brings the human touch that is needed for the film to succeed.

Chung effortlessly crafts what feels like a proper, made-for-the-big-screen summer blockbuster in the tradition of the 1996 film (Steven Spielberg once again serves as executive producer), but grounds it in the interplay between the characters. The result is a fun thrill ride that also plays like a disaster movie extension of the Glen Powell rom-com, buoyed by his mega-wattage charm and enjoyable chemistry with female lead Daisy Edgar-Jones.

Edgar-Jones stars as Kate, a former storm chaser from Oklahoma. She was spearheading a college science project trying to figure out a way to stop tornadoes by releasing polymers into them to absorb the moisture, which was cut short after her team got caught in the middle of a terrifying storm. Cut to five years later, and Kate has left the storm chasing behind, having settled into being a meteorologist in New York City.

When her former science partner Javier (Anthony Ramos) comes visiting and enlists her help to assist his company in using military technology to create a 3D scan of a live tornado, Kate gets pulled back out to Oklahoma. It’s here that she encounters Powell’s Tyler, a thrill-seeking cowboy YouTuber who calls himself the “tornado wrangler,” and films his rag-tag team of storm chasers driving under tornadoes and shooting fireworks into them.

The cocky Tyler and the more levelheaded Kate initially grind each other’s gears, but in a playful way, and we all know where this is probably going. The first movie was essentially a marital drama buried in a tornado movie that found Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt rekindling their flames, while this one works in elements of romantic comedy. It’s a genre that Powell knows very well; the basic smart girl and full-of-himself guy, enemies-to-something-more-than-friends, romantic outline of Twisters actually isn’t that dissimilar to his recent hit Anyone But You.

This rom-com subplot opens Twisters up to having cross-sex appeal, as the screenplay by Mark L. Smith (The Boys in the Boat) understands the evergreen joys of watching attractive people who have chemistry together flirting with each other. While not out of step with 2024, there is also a bit of an old fashioned feel to it that is refreshing. As such, Twisters feels like the closest thing to a return to the all-American blockbuster since Top Gun: Maverick. It’s largely apolitical, with country music on the soundtrack, and characters who go to the rodeo.

By not having any of the original characters return, this in some ways feels more like a reboot than a proper sequel to Jan de Bont’s original Twister, though both films are tonally similar. But this also allows the film to not rely so heavily on nostalgia for what came before, as so many “legacy sequels” do. Instead, Twisters expands off the foundation of the first film, building on the science and technology to offer its own adventure through the wild weather of rural Oklahoma.

It’s also just a rip-roaring good time at the movies that understands what you want out of a summer blockbuster, including dramatic scenes of swirling storm clouds and people trying desperately not to get sucked up into tornadoes. This sense of cinematic spectacle is writ large onscreen in a thrilling set-piece at an old movie theatre playing the original Frankenstein, which doubles as an homage to the first film’s use of a drive-in showing The Shining to offer images of a twister ripping through the screen. And on a hot summer day, this is why we go to the air conditioned movie theatre; to get swept up in watching the spectacle and characters onscreen. It’s an obvious hit.

Film Rating: ★★★ (out of 4)

Twisters is now playing exclusively in theatres.