Twisters

A nostalgia storm is coming and it might just be enough to change the winds of mainstream cinema.

As superhero universes and franchises begin to fall to the wayside, an era of legacy sequels and old-skool blockbusters seems to be upon us.

Twisters is the latest entry to this wave and, against all the odds, is actually a great example of why and how this sort of thing can work.

It simply feels fresh, despite its old-fashioned feel, because we haven’t seen something like this in such a long time. A propulsive and well-structured action blockbuster with top notch CGI and a Spielberg-esque proclivity for spectacle (no doubt helped with production credit from his Amblin Entertainment.)

There’s no shoehorning going on here, no overstuffing the film with cameos or trying to squeeze in jokes or vast amounts of exposition.

There are tornadoes, there is a pseudo-romance story underlining the plot and there are stakes, some serious trauma, some deeper levels and a kinda-makes-sense plot.

There’s some science involved but it all sounds vaguely plausible and non-annoying, even the one semi-‘mystical’ element to the thing that our lead character Kate has some sort of ‘sixth sense’ for tornadoes is just kinda fine in context.

The set pieces are all pretty darn startling and well crafted. Each differs well from the last despite their seeming similarity. The stakes shift each time as we learn more about the characters and we are pulled through the plot from one to the next with nary any sort of boring breakdown in between.

It just works as a ‘take your brain out’ family actioner with a heart. There’s a perfect amount of nineties cheesiness just sprinkled on the top of a meaty meal that sweeps you along, you’ll even toe tap to the almost too-on-the-nose country music songs dolloped along the way.

The summer blockbuster about bad weather that we could all do with right now.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️