FROM Top Gun to top banana, Glen Powell continues his winning streak this week with another mighty likeable turn in Twisters, Lee Isaac Chung’s long-time-coming sequel to 1996 disaster thriller Twister. This on the back of starring roles in sleeper hit Anyone But You and the Netflix romcom Hit Man. Powell is having what they call ‘a moment’.
It’s well deserved. Two decades of graft lie behind the chiselled Texan’s overnight success, his feet glued to the ground all the way. Having made his debut in 2003’s third Spy Kids flick, Powell’s bit part appearances have included roles in The Dark Knight Rises, Expendables 3 and Hidden Figures. Leading man status has been a long time coming.
Twisters sees Powell play thrill seeking hurricane hunter Tyler Owens, the cowboy next door to Daisy Edgar-Jones’ Kate Cooper, a quieter meteorologist and fellow storm seeker.
While Tyler yearns only for excitement - and the buzz of sharing his finds on social media - Kate has worthier goals. She’s invented a tool for shutting down tornadoes before any havoc can be wreaked. Clearly, it’s an ambition grounded in back story. Trauma lurks beneath and impressive blockbuster debut. She’s come a long way since Normal People.
In most ways, Twisters exists largely in isolation to the Jan de Bont original. The DNA is there, albeit on a grander scale, the setting is still rural Oklahoma and there’s a cameo for James Paxman, son of Bill Paxman, the OG storm chaser, who passed away in 2017.
Alongside Edgar-Jones and Powell, Twisters sees Transformers’ Anthony Ramos play Kate’s storm chasing aid, Javi, while Brandon Perea is on team Tyler, playing videographer Boone. There are roles too for Maura Tierney, Harry Hadden-Paton and Katy O'Brian.
The biggest new player, however, goes largely unmentioned. This is climate change, the harbinger of the increased twister activity that pluralises the title. Twisters isn’t quite brave enough to call out the crisis but it’s there.
Unto a Summer box office so far dominated by animation, Twisters offers more visceral fun. It’s an adrenaline rushing riot of big screen chaos, weighty in all the right places but benefitting of a lightness of narrative touch. If the weather, destruction, rampant CGI and rousing score don’t get you, the simmering will-they-won’t-they relationship of Powell and Edgar-Jones will be sure to set you in a spin.
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