“We gotta get everyone in the movie theatre!” somebody yells, as the tornado gouges its way through a small Oklahoman town, chewing up every person, plant and structure in its path. In Twisters’ climactic set piece, it’s a cinema that helps save the day – while doubling as the stage for one of the most inspired action scenes in years. But that shout also feels like a blustery from the film itself, which makes the best argument this year for the enduring power of collective big-screen entertainment.
Jan de Bont’s 1996 original, Twister – singular – was a diverting (and fondly remembered) summer thrill ride. But this follow-up, directed by Minari’s Lee Isaac Chung, vastly improves on it in all regards. A film many might have written off as a faintly desperate revival of an ageing blockbuster brand – perhaps with some perfunctory climate change finger-wagging thrown in for the likes – is in fact the most wholehearted, warm-blooded, meticulously crafted good time at the movies since .
Neither remake nor sequel, it’s simply a fresh run at a premise that began life in the early 1990s as a visual effects test at Industrial Light & Magic – can computers generate a photo-real tornado? – around which Michael Crichton and Anne-Marie Martin later built their storm-chaser plot. Of course these days, the computers’ abilities aren’t in question: it’s the scripts that tend to be the problem. But Mark L Smith, who wrote Twisters’ screenplay, and Top Gun: Ma.