One of the elements that gave such a visceral charge back in 1996 was its balance of practical effects with CGI, during a transitional period when the latter was becoming more seamlessly integrated into live action. Jan de Bont’s propulsive direction and two appealing leads with great chemistry also helped. Arriving almost three decades later, gets the job done in terms of whipping up life-threatening tornadoes that leave a trail of wreckage in their wake.
But the extent to which all this is conjured with a digital paintbox lessens the pulse-quickening awe of nature at its most destructive. The movie marks a confident enough move to , whose personal connection to the rural American heartland brought such aching tenderness to . That quality can be discerned in this film’s feel for geography, with red clay backroads cutting through verdant Oklahoma fields, and in the sorrow with which it witnesses the devastation of small communities.
As a summer blockbuster, more or less meets the requirements, unleashing lots of fierce weather, putting a smart, attractive woman between two attractive men who seem to have very different priorities and emphasizing the stakes right up front by startling us in an extended prologue with significant losses. But something’s missing. Mark L.
Smith’s screenplay — working from a story by Joseph Kosinski, who was originally slated to direct — settles into a routine pattern in which one whirlwind follows another with too little incremental bu.
