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Is ‘Twisters’ the Ultimate Rural Blockbuster? [1]
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Date: 2024-08-08
Editor’s Note: A version of this story first appeared in The Good, the Bad, and the Elegy, a newsletter from the Daily Yonder focused on the best, and worst, in rural media, entertainment, and culture. Every other Thursday, it features reviews, retrospectives, recommendations, and more. You can join the mailing list at the bottom of this article to receive future editions in your inbox.
I remember when I saw my first real tornado. I was about 10 years old at the time, peering through the front picture windows of my childhood home out into the wide-open western Kansas prairie, deep in Tornado Alley.
It was nothing more than a whisper of a funnel cloud kicking up dust on the horizon for a few minutes. It was horrifying and marvelous. It vanished just as quickly and elegantly as it appeared.
But the first tornado that I ever saw – the one that prompted my childhood phobia of severe storms – was the frightening F5 behemoth shown in the opening scene of the 1996 blockbuster “Twister.”
My parents, being two 20-somethings from a small town on the Plains when the film was released, quickly fell in love with the familiar heartland setting, the gritty performances of lead actors Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton, and the natural terrors that many folks in Tornado Alley know all too well.
“Twister” became a family staple growing up. It was a rare feat for Hollywood: situating a movie in rural middle America without completely denigrating its people or culture. I saw the film dozens of times before I left tornado country for college. Despite the cinematic sensationalism and occasional scientific or cultural inaccuracy, “Twister” has become a movie that I share with new friends to help paint a slightly clearer picture of what life on the prairie looks like.
Learning about “Twisters,” the 2024 standalone sequel directed by Lee Isaac Chung, was like seeing that cyclone on the Kansas horizon. I was cautiously thrilled. Would this be another uninspired sequel with stereotypes more dangerous than the twisters themselves? Or would this be the ultimate rural-themed summer blockbuster?
A New Twist
In contrast with previous sequels like 2022’s “Top Gun: Maverick,” “Twisters” cuts itself loose from the characters and plot lines of its predecessor, allowing the film to step into the 21st century with fresh faces and nail-biting action while paying homage to the nostalgic 1990s blockbuster formula.
An official trailer for ‘Twisters’ (via Universal Pictures on YouTube).
The movie begins just as its predecessor did on a stormy summer day in rural Oklahoma. Kate Carter (Daisy Edgar-Jones), who grew up on a nearby farm, is a college student working to secure grant money to develop a water-absorbing solution that will reduce the intensity of a tornado.
Then, of course, unthinkable tragedy strikes.
Like Dr. Jo Harding (Helen Hunt) in the original film, Kate’s traumatic experience sets the film into motion. Unlike Jo, Kate becomes afraid of tornadoes and leaves Oklahoma to work at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in New York City.
Years later, Kate is convinced to return to Oklahoma for a one-week chasing adventure with old friend Javi (Anthony Ramos), who needs Kate’s help to test his mobile radar company’s new tornado scanning technology.
Back in Oklahoma, the pair runs into Tyler Owens (Glen Powell), known as the “Tornado Wrangler” on his popular YouTube channel. Tyler and his crew of rural Arkansas “hillbillies” take a loud and daredevilish approach to storm chasing, even going as far as driving straight into a storm to launch fireworks up into a cyclone for their viral videos.
To anyone hoping that this film honors meteorological science, I encourage you to suspend your disbelief. Perhaps we shouldn’t expect undying devotion to scientific accuracy in a film whose primary goal is to compete with other blockbuster spectacles like “Planet of the Apes” and “Godzilla x Kong.”
As for the accuracy of rural representation, take it from this rural Kansan: “Twisters” took the time to get rural scenery and rural communities right – or at least pretty darn close to right.
In between the various twisters – each conveniently more vicious and erratic than the last – the film provides respite with sweeping shots of the land and sky of rural Oklahoma, a simple beauty that is often overlooked (if not ignored) in damaging “flyover state” rhetoric.
To the franchise’s continued credit, the heartland is not depicted as a desolate hellhole and its people are not unendingly hateful. Rather, it’s depicted through vibrant community events and shared spaces like fire pit parties, rodeos, farmers markets, and town festivals.
Though in this film, of course, peace is never a guarantee. In fact, it’s often a warning.
In an exaggerated flash, the rural countryside quickly turns dark. The pleasant rural iconography of water towers or wind turbines, and even the occasional chicken coop, become weapons for the massive swirling monsters in the sky. The beast practically devours an entire town.
Which brings us to one of the bigger plot holes in the film. In the real world, many of the struggles in prediction and communication technology detailed in the original movie have drastically improved.
It does seem odd, even after suspending belief, just how quickly severe weather pops up and surprises the seemingly oblivious locals. True heartlanders can often smell a dangerous storm coming. It seems even Kate’s supernatural “spidey-sense” for tornadoes are no match for some of the cyclones.
As long as viewers understand overdramatization when they see it and don’t take the rural citizens for fools, I can give “Twisters” a pass on this one. After all, what thrill or action would there be if tornadoes were so easily escaped?
Other critics, like Brett Fieldcamp of the Oklahoma City Free Press, are understandably less forgiving than me.
“To believe ‘Twisters,’ Oklahoma is 100% dirt roads, rodeos, sepia-hued Dust Bowl towns, and an aggressively uninformed, ignorant population with seemingly no knowledge of tornadoes or weather awareness at all,” Fieldcamp writes.
While Fieldcamp’s perspective echoes laments we’ve shared here at the Daily Yonder, I didn’t see hugely dangerous depictions of dirt roads, rodeos, or “Dust Bowl” towns. What I saw was familiar, neighborly communities that do little to actually damage the reputation of the heartland and its people.
Into the Storm
In fact, looking past the high-speed, rain-wrapped thrills and into the heart of the film, “Twisters” makes a good habit of setting up a typical forecast of rural tropes, just to subvert them later on, a technique that may be successful in confronting some audience preconceptions. When we initially meet Tyler Owens and his hillbilly crew, they are presented as a stupid, rowdy bunch of Arkansas hicks who are just trying to make a quick buck off of the nightmarish reality that the locals face, led by the smug Tornado Wrangler himself. But once the audience takes a moment to check their own biases at the door, we learn that this wrangler, while still imperfect, is actually a trained meteorologist who uses his education and platform to provide aid to the small communities decimated by the storms. A movie poster for ‘Twisters’ (Credit: Universal Pictures).
Part of this thoughtful navigation can surely be credited to director Lee Isaac Chung, a Daily Yonder favorite who himself grew up on a rural farm in Arkansas.
Chung’s rural understanding also shows up in the wake of each destructive twister, as volunteer first responders and other community members rush to help their friends, family, and neighbors — evocative of responses to real world tragedies like the East Kentucky flood and the Rolling Fork tornado.
I would have appreciated it if the film took this further to discuss some of the inequalities in disaster relief assistance and aid that rural, remote, and impoverished communities often face.
There are whispers toward some of these issues, like when real estate vulture Marshall Riggs (David Born) invests in Javi’s company only to learn the names of the people whose homes and businesses were destroyed, so he can purchase their devastated land for cheap. Marshall’s storyline is unfortunately left underdeveloped and unresolved when the credits start rolling.
Additionally, another looming real-world concern is climate change. While increasingly extreme and unpredictable weather patterns are subtly invoked as a systemic antecedent for the crazy twisters, climate change is not mentioned once by the group of meteorologists – an omission that’s about as far-fetched as shooting chemicals in the sky to kill an F5 tornado.
Sucked In
So, “Twisters” undeniably has its imperfections. Consider also Edgar-Jones’s shaky effort at an Oklahoma accent.
Despite these quibbles though, the film has made a positive impression with a broad swath of moviegoers. “Twisters” saw an unexpected box office boom, with an opening weekend of $82 million, making it, at that moment, the third biggest opening weekend of the year, behind only “Inside Out 2” and “Dune: Part Two.”
“Relatable characters, rural settings, a mix of spectacle, fun, and heart are just a few ingredients contributing to the film’s success with people from a wide variety of lifestyles and backgrounds,” Shawn Robbins, the founder of Box Office Theory, said in an interview with Variety.
You, like me, might tire of the cheap-thrills entertainment that often saturates today’s movie business. But every so often an outlier comes along to talk me off my pretentious high horse to enjoy some good and simple entertainment.
“Twisters” offers a whirlwind of fun – the kind of unadulterated excitement that even the most discerning or cynical cinephiles ought to give themselves a chance to get wrapped up in.
Twisters is currently playing in theaters.
This article first appeared in The Good, the Bad, and the Elegy, an email newsletter from the Daily Yonder focused on the best, and worst, in rural media, entertainment, and culture. Every other Thursday, it features reviews, recommendations, retrospectives, and more. Join the mailing list today to have future editions delivered straight to your inbox.
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