Review of Twisters, directed by Lee Isaac Chung

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

I recently fell into a spell of unemployment probably during the worst time to be unemployed, as it was very hard to find a job. I was applying to hundreds of jobs, getting interviews, but no offer was manifesting for me in the near future. So during this time, I had a lot of free time, and spent a good chunk of it chipping away at the blog.

Once upon a time I used to go the movies every week, as I had an AMC A List subscription. For my non-Americans out there reading this, this means that a local movie theater chain here in the States has a subscription where if you pay like $28 a month, you can watch up to four movies a week there. I ended up losing my car in April 2024, which is when I stopped going as often.

I also used to work as a film critic, so screeners were getting sent to me. Twisters was one of the movies that was sent to me a while back, but I never got around to it because I wasn’t doing the specific coverage for it and I had decided I wanted to leave that job to pursue something else, which was a decision partially motivated because I liked blogging for myself more.

Anyways, during my period of unemployment mentioned above, I would go to the library a lot to search for movies. I often borrow my sister’s DVD player to watch movies from there, and I love seeing what my library can get ahold of. Usually all the new and hip movies appear there after a set amount of time, which is great for me and my budget.

It was there I found a DVD copy of Twisters, and although I had no interest in it at first, I kind of just shrugged my shoulders and decided to go for it. It seemed like fate at the time, as I had not much else going on.

Let’s get into the review! I don’t want to keep going on and on about myself and not the movie.

After giving up chasing storms, one girl is going to face her trauma one last time—and might find romance along the way.

The movie begins with a series of scenes that set the context, and trauma, for the main character. Kate is a meteorology student who’s teamed up with her boyfriend (Jeb), Javi, Praveen, and Addy in order to chase after storms, as she has a theory sodium polyacrylate might help stop tornadoes.

As they leave Javi behind to test the theory, the tornado suddenly strengthens and intensifies into an EF5, killing everyone except Kate and Javi, who was farther away than everyone else. This left Kate with so much guilt and trauma that she decided she was no longer going to keep chasing storms.

However, after a time skip of five years, Javi shows up to her job at NOAA. He works for a mobile tornado radar company and wants her to help out with a new tornado system, and she doesn’t want to do it. She only agrees after he tells her about a town flattened by a tornado, then they head back out to Oklahoma and meet his business partner: Scott.

It’s there they meet YouTuber and storm chaser Tyler Owens, who’s obnoxious but has his own crew to work with and a British journalist who wants to get the scoop on storm chasing. When a tornado touches down nearby, Kate has a panic attack and can’t help set up the scanners for their team, leading to their mission becoming a failure for that day.

However, the next day another tornado touches down, and Kate and Javi manage to get a scanner down before it intensifies to a level 3. It almost kills them, but they still help out with aiding a nearby town destroyed by the tornado. Tyler and his team also show up to help the people there, and Kate learns they use their profit to help victims.

This is a stark contrast to the investor of Javi’s company, as he buys the land of victims for cheap in order to profit off of them. Tyler and Katie go out to a rodeo, but when a level 4 tornado develops, they have to take shelter. Kate, reminded of Javi’s company’s investor, goes off on him about it, and he blames her for their friends all dying.

Kate decides to quit and goes back to her mother’s farm, and Tyler tracks her down and follows. Tyler discovers her old experiment and asks if she wants him to help, but when she refuses, he tells her it can help people. She hesitantly agrees, but the experiment fails with the next tornado. Javi then helps them out by giving them some data, and she realizes they need silver iodide.

The next big twister is happening soon, but things worsen quickly when it becomes a fire tornado after hitting an oil refinery. It then becomes an EF5, and Javi quits his company and follows the rest of the gang to El Reno after he realizes how much damage this is going to cause.

Kate and Tyler are working to evacuate people there when Tyler gets hit by debris. Javi shows up just to free him, but the trio are left outside with no shelter and a tornado coming right at them. Kate takes Tyler’s truck with the silver iodide, which works to stop the tornado just as it gets to the movie theater Tyler is in.

After this, Kate looks to go back to New York, but Tyler asks her to stay. Her flight is delayed by a storm, and Kate decides to go off with Tyler to help, kickstarting a future business with Javi that monitors tornadoes.

Overall Thoughts

I remember for some time when I went into the movie theaters to see something that I would get hit with the trailer for this movie constantly, but at those moments I had zero interest in seeing this film. The stakes are obviously high throughout it due to the nature and danger of tornadoes, but this movie feels like it has a specific demographic to me.

Like I have no interest in storm chasing, nor do I know anything about it. I think Kate’s story was the most interesting aspect of everything going on to me, as well as how other people exploit victims of natural disasters, but it kind of takes a backseat for the romance. We do see how her research can and will help people, though, which is a nice payoff.

No idea if that’s the actual science behind any of this, but I’ll leave that judgement to someone who knows way more about this than me. I feel like though this movie has some pacing issues throughout, which made it difficult tow atch in the middle section especially. I was starting to get bored a little bit.

I think if this movie seems like something that you would like, go ahead and watch it! I personally will not revisit it any time soon unless something changes about my interests, but I’m glad I watched it because I can say I’ve finally seen it.

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