‘Twisters’ review: Chasing yesteryear’s blockbuster storm

Tornadoes have been a subject of film fascination at least since “The Wizard of Oz” in 1939, but Dutch cameraman-turned-director Jan de Bont helped to solidify the appeal of the cinematic cyclone with his 1996 summer blockbuster “Twister,” about a group of adrenaline-junkie storm chasers. A belated sequel, “Twisters,” arrives 28 years after de Bont’s film, chasing away all those “Sharknados” that have cluttered up the tornado movie subgenre and reminding us of what made “Twister” so appealing to begin with. It wasn’t necessarily the airborne fauna but rather the human dramas that play out as tornadoes roam across the landscape.

“Minari” director Lee Isaac Chung tackles “Twisters,” which has an analogue in “Aliens,” and not just in its approach to titling. Both “Twisters” and “Aliens” are bigger, beefier sequels to their ruthlessly efficient predecessors, and both are wildly entertaining, expanding on the world introduced in the first films without striving to replicate them.

The only cameo from a “Twister” star in “Twisters” comes in the form of “Dorothy,” the data collection device developed in the first film. Otherwise, these new characters simply share the same passion for understanding storms. Chung and story writer Joseph Kosinski (Mark L. Smith penned the script) tap into the elements that made the first one so appealing, packing the plot with colorful characters while centering on two leads with an undeniable chemistry that’s as stormy as the weather.

Our new hero, meteorologist Kate (Daisy Edgar-Jones), has shied away from stormchasing after exposing her team to danger and enduring a devastating personal loss in the path of a brutal tornado during her college days. She runs from her guilt as far as she can, landing in New York City behind a desk at the National Weather Service.

But the past always comes calling, here in the form of an old friend, Javi (Anthony Ramos), who convinces Kate to help him with a new project, Storm PAR, developing portable military-grade radar systems to create more accurate storm warnings for real estate developers hoping to build in tornado-ravaged areas.

When they head to Oklahoma to measure storms during a tornado outbreak, the pair run into a crowd of amateur stormchasers and a swaggering social media star, Tyler (Glen Powell), a self-proclaimed “tornado wrangler,” who performs stunts like driving his fortified truck directly into a tornado in order to shoot fireworks up the funnel while livestreaming to his followers. Naturally, he sells T-shirts emblazoned with his face and rides with a team of hard-charging stormchasers who look eternally ready for Burning Man (a charm offensive made up of Brandon Perea, Sasha Lane, Katy O’Brian and Tunde Adebimpe).

But Tyler’s signature catch phrase, “If you feel it, chase it,” is eerily akin to Kate’s own relationship with storms. If he’s the wrangler, she seeks to be the tamer, the intuitive. Kate reads not radar but dandelion fluff and the way wind ripples across wheat. Despite their prickly interactions, Tyler and Kate are much more simpatico than she is with the Storm PAR team, a group of polo-shirted nerds with PhDs, including grumpy number-cruncher Scott (David Corenswet). And when Powell directs his lightning-crack grin toward Edgar-Jones, it’s only a matter of time before these enemies become lovers, or at least colleagues.

Chung’s “Minari” is an autobiographical tale about a Korean immigrant family settling down in Arkansas, and he knows the tone of small-town middle America, as well as the terror of tornado warnings. He takes care with place-setting, utilizing contemporary country tunes and a winsome lens on good old Americana. The Stars and Stripes ripples through the night sky at a local rodeo before a tornado tears down the middle of it. If Kate and Tyler have a motivation, it’s to save the people in these towns and their way of life.

“Twisters” does chase down a few too many storylines that don’t develop into anything worthwhile, like a nefarious real estate subplot that fizzles out quickly. Perhaps it’s just the gravitational pull of Powell’s outsize charisma, but the film is at its best when it’s focused on him and his merry band of content creators, though he needs the push-pull banter with a foil like Edgar-Jones to shine.

Bright, shiny amusement needs to be anchored to the ground too, and Chung’s attention to Edgar-Jones’ quietly powerful performance offers a surprisingly emotional undergirding to this popcorn flick. The gut-wrenching opening sequence is shockingly moving.

Even if Chung does leave us wanting just a little bit more romance, he delivers a supremely entertaining summer blockbuster in “Twisters,” one with a thematic heft that makes it even better than expected, and better than the first.

Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.