Twisters is a movie I never planned to watch, at least in the theater. Yes, I was a Glen Powell fan before the world caught up, a.k.a. a Scream Queens fan, and yes, after I saw Minari and loved it, I completely trust Lee Isaac Chung, but I am not exactly a summer blockbuster movie fan. There are plenty of great ones but those are just not my go-to movies.
However, Twisters appealed to my family, so we saw it. It ended up being one of my favorite movie experiences in a while. Twisters ranks up there with Inception as a theater experience I will always remember, and I didn’t even have the pleasure of seeing it in 4DX (but maybe now I will). What made it rank so highly is that it’s just a fun movie that’s better than I expected.
I also loved how much heart it had as a summer blockbuster, especially its approach to a serious topic: the damaging impact of tornadoes.
Warning: Twisters spoilers are ahead. Proceed with caution.
Tornadoes Cause Real-Life Devastation And I'm Glad Twisters Shows That For Those Who Don't Grasp Their Seriousness
Before seeing Twisters, I had just experienced a power outage because of a nearby tornado. It caused a major storm in my area that took out the power on my block and others for a few days. A few years ago, another major summer storm took out my power for a week. Because of these storms, I experienced minor setbacks, like needing to repair a door, spoiled food, missing work hours, some flooding, etc., but these are all small problems compared to the major devastations many experience due to tornadoes and severe storms.
Twisters could have simply been a fun movie about chasing tornadoes and tornado wrangling. However, one of the film’s most impactful moments is when Kate (Daisy Edgar-Jones) and Tyler (Glen Powell) visit a small town hit by a tornado. In these scenes, one of the first images is a house completely ripped apart by a tornado.
Things like tornadoes are just concepts until people are forced to experience or see them. I believe many people will understand how scary and dangerous tornadoes can be just from seeing this movie. I don’t know if the film really offers any solution to tornadoes, but it at least makes some completely unaware of how dangerous they are more aware.
Harsh Weather Conditions Are The Monsters In This Movie
Fans love King Kong, Godzilla, and other Monsterverse creatures (I mean who doesn’t want the Monsterverse to continue) and everyone loves a good horror franchise villain; monsters and villains sell. Twisters has this element but it’s the tornadoes.
The film doesn’t really take a stand and go "maybe if people stopped doing this, then maybe there would be fewer tornadoes." Whereas Bong Joon-ho’s great monster movie (one of his best), The Host, doesn’t shy away from placing blame on how monsters develop, here, tornadoes are the monsters of nature without the drama saying maybe the things we’re doing to the environment might create these weather dangers.
But, it does offer some ways to try to tame these beasts. Kate finds a way to minimize their impact. Whether her solution is realistic is for smarter people than me to decide and debate. However, maybe this big blockbuster movie could at least encourage everyday citizens (not just scientists) to look into ways they can help fight climate change on a local, smaller scale.
Twisters potential impact may justify its existence and maybe create a demand for more standalone sequels to '90s movies.
It Gave Me A Healthy Fear Of Tornadoes
As someone who lives in the Midwest, I have experienced a lot of intense weather situations. This includes major storms and heat waves. Because I am so used to bad weather, I think I am a little desensitized to the dangers of extreme weather. I just don’t fear it maybe as much as I should.
Seeing the opening of Twisters, and some of the other scenes when tornadoes picked up people like it was the easiest thing in the world, scared me. It scared me because I have experienced extreme winds and could barely walk because I was being blown around so much. I have family members who have driven during a storm and nearly had their cars picked up because of the weather.
The drama may take things to an extreme level because it’s a movie and things need to be heightened, but there is definitely some realism to the power of a really bad storm. It can cause devastation. And that shouldn’t be ignored.
Twisters reminded me that people and animals aren’t the only things in this world to fear. I should be at least somewhat afraid of nature. I don’t think a healthy fear is a bad thing, because it will cause me to be more cautious the next time my phone sends me a tornado warning.
Twisters Made Me Like The Characters More Because They Had A Purpose
Twisters uses the classic technique of having Tyler be misjudged as this self-centered carefree person, but the audience and Kate learn that he has a heart. He cares about helping people. It’s a classic setup and I hate to admit that I ate up. I liked Tyler more after learning that he wanted to help people just as much as Kate did.
I also liked Kate more knowing that her initial carelessness, ambition, and obsession with storm chasing was for something bigger. She wanted to find a way to minimize the impact of tornadoes. Studying them was the only way to achieve that goal.
Once you learn the purpose behind most of these characters’ madness, you like them more. At least I did.
It Helps Emphasize The Importance Of Weather Readiness
The pool scene in Twisters made me wonder if that would really work in real life. Could you hold on to bars in a pool and really protect yourself from flying away during a storm?? What would be safe zones if a tornado was coming and you were outside? Could my place withstand a tornado?
It made me want to do more research on protecting myself and others if caught in a tornado. This may just be a summer blockbuster, but I do think it has some real-world impact. It made me want to understand tornadoes better. To me, this makes it one of the best disaster movies of the decade (even with a less-than-satisfying ending)
Twisters is playing in theaters nationwide. Be sure to also check out CinemaBlend's Twisters review.
