PhantomKnight
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Post by PhantomKnight on Jul 30, 2024 20:53:30 GMT -5
The original Twister is my favorite disaster film of all-time, a movie dripping with personality and earnestness that I saw at just the right time and is still immensely enjoyable to me. So, the prospect of a not-really-sequel with an entirely new cast of characters had me...well, I don't know what. My main concern was that a new movie would fail to grasp what made the first so special, plus the choice of Minari filmmaker Lee Isaac Chung as director struck me as someone the studio chose just to keep the director's seat warm. And, well, while Twisters doesn't match the lightning-in-a-bottle feel of the 1996 movie, credit where credit is due: this movie does, in fact, understand what made the original work. Because not only does the film provide plenty of exciting storm sequences that effectively have a strong sense of placing you in the action (especially in IMAX), but Mark L. Smith's script wisely recognizes that another big part of the first's appeal was a colorful cast of characters. And while this one may not have the effortless charm of the original cast, it DOES have the effortless charisma of one Glenn Powell, along with Daisy Edgar-Jones and solid supporting work of the rest of the cast. And I'll say this: the plot here isn't anything a whole lot special, and it in fact mirrors the original's in more than one way, but it's the execution of everything, the charisma of the cast, and the strong sense of place that Lee Isaac Chung brings that ultimately make this movie work. Building off that last point a bit, I can now see why Chung was chosen as director: himself being from Oklahoma, Chung is able to bring a palpable sense of community and local flavor that does enhance the atmosphere. Something else he also does is take the time to show the aftereffects of the devastation a tornado brings in its wake -- something that the first movie admittedly only touched on once or twice. Not that Twisters is secretly some affecting drama, but the movie wisely knows to balance out all the excitement and fun (for lack of a better word) of storm chasing with the scarier and more sobering parts of it as well. The movie can be fun when it needs to be, and also intense when it needs to. Something else I like about it is how singular it is. Yes, it's using an IP as a hook, sort of, but neither is this a movie beholden to nostalgia or what came before. It not being in any way a sequel to Twister helps a lot there, and that's a strength. Because while Twisters definitely homages the original in more ways than one, it still isn't bogged down in memba berries. One can definitely enjoy this movie entirely on its own without having seen Twister, and in an age where legacy sequels can be burdened by nostalgia, I definitely like this movie's approach. I also like how the movie handle the relationship between the two main leads. Each character is made distinct and likable, and seeing them interact over the course of the film is a highlight, but I like how the movie handles the progression, too, especially in how it chooses to end things there. Just another unexpected nice touch in a movie with quite a few of them. Twisters represents a refreshing visit back to a different kind of blockbuster, one that sucks you in reasonably well. ***/**** |
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Dracula
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Post by Dracula on Jul 30, 2024 22:17:00 GMT -5
Twisters(7/17/2024)
Hollywood is scrambling to find the “next big thing” now that superhero movies seem to be on the outs and one strategy they seem to be going for in the wake of Top Gun: Maverick is to try to make long delayed sequels to popular movies that they didn’t feel the need to make sequels to back in the day. The latest film to get this treatment is Twister, although the follow-up they’ve come up with does not have any of the cast members of the 1996 original and unless I missed an Easter Egg in there somewhere I don’t think they reference a single character or event from that movie, so really this is more of a remake in the guise of a sequel. Personally, I never cared to much about the original Twister so the idea of more of it doesn’t exactly fill me with excitement but it’s also not like the legacy of anything that mattered to me was on the line with this one so there wasn’t much to lose. Interestingly the guy they tapped to direct the movie was Lee Isaac Chung, the man behind the immigration drama Minari, who isn’t exactly an intuitive choice for something like this but that movie was set in Arkansas and knowledge of that region is valuable when making a movie set in Tornado Alley and while I’m certainly not going to call this anything resembling a deep exploration of red dirt country there is some local flavor that Chung is able to inject here, which is one of the film’s stronger elements. Chung also brings the film’s other major strength to the table: it’s a generally well shot and crafted movie with some good special effects. The tornados mostly look good and the sound effects have the room shaking as you’d want it to.
So there’s some reasonably effective filmmaking to be found here but the movie is let down by Mark L. Smith’s screenplay, which struck me as being really uninspired and formulaic and generally lived down to the flaws of the original film. The problem with both of these movies is that, in reality, tornados are rather random and disparate events and while “storm chasers” do exist the notion that they could stumble upon one of these disasters a day for a week is unlikely and it’s hard to build a movie around this. So in order to really structure one of these movies they need to give the characters some weird personal problems like a rivalry with opposing storm chasers or a romantic subplot, both of which are present here. The movie centers around a woman who’s coming back to storm chasing after having lost friends in a misguided chase five years earlier but has to contend with a rival group of storm chasers who are looking to get viral fame rather than conduct real science. The main guy in that rival group is played by Glen Powell though and as the movie goes on he starts to not seem so bad and as the movie goes on the main woman plainly starts to fall for him. That romance plays out pretty directly in line with formula, as does the rest of the movie. It’s a little pandering too. If there’s anything to be found under the surface of this its this Hallmark-esque subtext about city girls coming home and marrying a small town hunk. The movie is watchable enough and has a couple decent action sequences, but there’s really not any substance there and the storytelling is pretty weak. Please don’t let this lead to Armageddon 2.
**1/2 out of Five
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frankyt
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Post by frankyt on Aug 17, 2024 5:18:08 GMT -5
This was such shit. Very low effort. Again glen Powell as a leading man leaves me baffled. The script doesn't give him much but he delivers most of the comedic lines with some of the worst timing in a while for a major blockbuster.
Almost every actor here is bad. I guess the UK journalist is prob the most believable. The music almost to a t misses every single time. It's a head scratcher - who green lit this script?
Awful.
4/10
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