Twisters

Director: Lee Isaac Chung
Starring: Daisy Edgar-Jones, Glen Powell, Anthony Ramos, Brandon Perea, Maura Tierney, Harry Hadden-Paton, Sasha Lane, Daryl McCormack, Kiernan Shipka, Nik Dodani, David Corenswet, Tunde Adebimpe, Katy O' Brian
Running Time: 122 min.
Rating: PG-13

★★★ ½ (out of ★★★★)  

As a follow-up to 1996's hit disaster film Twister, Lee Isaac Chung's Twisters far exceeds reasonable expectations, proving sometimes it's worth waiting for legacy sequels we didn't know we needed. A skilled director, the right cast and a tightly woven, surprisingly intelligent script results in the kind of summer blockbuster experience that's recently fallen by the wayside. Beyond just sharing a writer and star, it compares favorably to Top Gun: Maverick by taking everything that worked in the original and building on it.  

The question going in would be how they'd approach a second installment nearly thirty years after cows flying across our screens seemed like a huge deal. Considering the lengths we've come, you can't help but wonder whether disaster films like this even carry the same cultural currency they did decades ago. Storms that felt like once in a lifetime occurrences are now commonplace as the media inundates us with images of weather-related destruction on a daily basis. 

You may also wonder why fictitious scientists and meteorologists would waste their time physically chasing storms when modern tracking technology has advanced so far beyond anything depicted in the original. But the best thing about Twisters is how it accounts for this, crafting an entirely new plot around that very idea.

It's been five years since Kate Carter (Daisy Edgar-Jones) led her crew into an EF5 tornado, attempting to use the Dorothy V doppler to reduce the storm's intensity and secure future research funding. Instead, the tornado took the lives of friends and team members Addy (Kiernan Shipka), Praveen (Nik Dodani) and her boyfriend Jeb (Daryl McCormack). Still wracked with guilt, Kate works in New York's NOAA office, where she's contacted by her team's other remaining survivor, Javi (Anthony Ramos). After some initial resistance, she accepts her former friend's single week offer to join his mobile Storm Par team as they test a revolutionary new tornado scanning radar. 

Kate returns home to tornado alley in Oklahoma where she and Javi's team encounter popular YouTube storm chaser and self-professed "Tornado Wrangler" Tyler Owens (Glen Powell) and his crew consisting of videographer Boone (Brandon Perea), drone operator Lily (Sasha Lane), scientist Dexter (Tunde Adebimpe) and mechanic Dani (Katy O'Brien). Also tagging along is petrified British journalist Ben (Harry Haden-Paton), who's doing a profile on Tyler. As the two squads clash for access during a dangerous tornado outbreak, Kate and Tyler feud, allegiances get tested and they all risk their lives battling the unpredictable force of these natural disasters.

Those certain this would open with a childhood flashback echoing the original will be relieved to discover Mark L. Smith's script takes a more immediately impactful route for the prologue. It isn't often characters you assume will carry the rest of the movie are killed off within the first fifteen minutes, but the tactic does create a sense of urgency that propels the plot forward, its ramifications not lost on either the viewers or protagonist. 

Out of that comes a solid setup, wherein Kate must overcome her trauma to finish the job she started five years earlier but has given up finishing. Javi's pitch for her to join him is a good one since his new technology seems focused on preventing future catastrophes, offering Kate another chance to make the positive difference she originally intended. But while they clearly need her expertise, a stark contrast is drawn between the corporate funded Storm Par and Tyler's ragtag gang of misfits seeking social media views. Neither side represents what Kate initially assumes, leading to some compelling developments that test everyone's character.

British actress Daisy Edgar-Jones has been popping up everywhere of late, but she's an unexpected natural as Kate, entertainingly trading dry, sarcastic jabs with Powell while still fulfilling every other requirement asked of her in the action scenes and beyond. When the narrative undergoes a major shift midway through, it turns into the Glen Powell show, as he flexes his considerable charisma as the type of rogue, cocky cowboy that would have been played by Matthew McConaughey in the 90's. And he pulls it off just as smoothly, especially when Tyler's personality and motivations evolve, taking the story where it needs to go. 

Of Powell's recent breakthroughs, Hit Man may still be his best, but this one stands as the biggest example of why his movie star presence has earned all those Tom Cruise comparisons. As for the rest of the crowded cast, they more than hold up their ends, including Maura Tierney as Kate's estranged mom and future Superman David Corenswet as Javi's less than accommodating business partner. 

It wouldn't even be accurate to say this has a romantic sub-plot since it's so restrained and subtly handled you may not notice it's there. Chung knows what really needs emphasis in the final stretch, which of course features the tornado to end all tornadoes. The teams scramble to save lives while Kate struggles to implement her updated innovation, leading to a really impressive last act.

If the original was all about spectacle, this definitely doesn't lack that with much improved visual effects, along with an acknowledgement of the permanent mark these tornadoes leave on rural residents who survive them. It won't be mistaken for a Weather Channel documentary anytime soon, but considering how this issue was barely addressed in the first film, there's just enough of it here to raise the stakes. 

It's clear everyone involved with Twisters worked to avoid the traps that typically plague event sequels, and despite the usual groans from skeptics when an acclaimed indie filmmaker supposedly "sells out," it doesn't apply to Minari director Chung, who's made a worthy successor. Remaining true to the original's spirit, the whole concept gets a refresh that feels comfortably familiar, earning its place under the Amblin Entertainment banner by invoking Spielberg's 80's and 90's adventure output.      

Escape Room

Director: Adam Robitel
Starring: Taylor Russell, Logan Miller, Deborah Ann Wohl, Jay Ellis, Tyler Labine, Nik Dodani, Yorick van Wageningen
Running Time: 100 min.
Rating: PG-13

★★★ (out of ★★★★)

The Game meets Saw meets Final Destination in director Adam Robitel's 2019 horror thriller, Escape Room, a mostly successful attempt to cinematically translate the growing cultural popularity of a craze where players must work their way out of an enclosed maze via puzzles and clues. It's ripe material for a movie and screenwriters Bragi F. Schut and Maria Melnik wisely realize such a premise exploits what audiences most want from their entertainment experience: Ordinary people being placed in dangerous and mysterious circumstances with seemingly no way out. Executing such an idea to its maximum potential is another matter entirely, but this is definitely the genre it always seems to work best in. 

Of those aformentioned titles, it most closely resembles the Saw series, or at least the first few films, before the producers lost interest in delivering anything resembling a coherent story in favor of escalating the graphic traps. Being that this is PG-13, there's very little in the way of "torture porn" here, which works to its favor, allowing it to channel some of the better psychologically suspenseful elements of that 2004 original, transporting us to a simpler time when two strangers being locked in a room was enough of a starting point. The only thing missing just may have been Tobin Bell, who you half-expect to show up, alerting us that this was in fact the reboot we hoped would eventually arrive.

Shy college physics student Zoey (Taylor Russell), wealthy stock trader Jason (Jay Ellis), grocery stockboy Mike (Logan Miller), truck driver Mike (Tyler Labine), Iraq war veteran Amanda (Deborah Ann Wohl) and nerdy escape room ethusiast Danny (Nik Dodani) are each gifted a mysterious puzzle cube containing an invitation to participate in an escape room with a $10,000 winning prize. After arriving at an unknown office building waiting room to receive instructions from the Gamesmaster, they're surprised to discover their game has already begun. And it's a deadly one. 

With a series of rooms containing few safeguards and seemingly constructed by someone with intimate knowledge of all the players' personal lives, it's set up to prey on their strengths and weaknesses. As they progress from room to the next, risking their lives in the face of increasing danger, it becomes a battle for survival with not only the unseen Gamesmaster, but the other strangers with whom they're competing. Hardly a random selection of participants, it soon becomes apparent that they're all there for a reason. But with only one winnner, the rest of them may not live to discover what that is. 

This is an admittedly cheesy premise, but a great one nonetheless. The early set-up scenes do come off  as a far less sophisticated take on David Fincher's The Game, as the eventual participants (all carrying a variety of personal baggage) receive this mysterious "gift" from an anonymous corporation. As we know, this is never good, but always fun to watch, as we're gradually introduced to their wildly different personalities and histories when the game begins. Everyone fits a certain type and while everyone in the cast does a better than serviceable job, it's tough to pin down a particular performance of note in a movie consisting entirely of functional roles, similar in that they're all constantly in a state of emotional and physical distress. 

It's plainly evident from the opening scenes that introverted bookworm Zoey is being established as the heroine, or "final girl," which isn't to say she necessarily makes it to the end since the script actually does subvert expectations considerably. As the brainiac, she's the voice of reason, always coming through at the right moment with valuable information to get them to the next stage. Of course, the plot wouldn't be complete without that one guy. You know the one. The wealthy, entitled, ultra-competitive alpha who believes this is survival of the fittest and isn't about to lose under any circumstances. He's played by Jay Ellis with a little more restrant than we're used to. If there's a guilty pleasure performance in the bunch, it's Logan Miller's dazed, strung-out store clerk who delivers a seemingly endless supply of wide-eyed craziness with each interaction he has with the various players. 

The action rarely takes a breather as they traverse the rooms, some of which are more inventive than others, but all equally dangerous, whether resulting in potential death by fire, hypothermia or poisoning. And from a production design standpoint, more than a few of them are really visually impressive, such as an upside-down billiards bar and a trippy, hallucinogenically inspired setting complete with some warped-out optical illusions.

The inventively different ways in which the characters are eliminated, their backstories, and the revelation as to why they were selected is definitely reminiscent of The Final Destination series. But at least when the eventual explanation is given, it's relatively simple and logically delivered. Too often movies like this make their reveals too complicated, so it was a relief to see this one deliver that information in a single, unfussy sequence that doesn't overstay its welcome or get bogged down with too many details. At least until the very end.

Leaving little to the imagination in terms of how this mysterious corporation operates, the writers do seem determined to pull back the curtain as far as possible when less would be more. We even get a somewhat underwhelming appearance from someone who actually makes the organization seem slightly less threatening than we had built up in our minds. The last act of a high concept thriller like this is crucial since it's tough to name many that have gotten it completely right, but Robitel does deserve a pat on the back for making it all the way through without botching it as badly as others.

A lot of what goes down is smart, until it goes a little deeper than it should in emphasizing that this project has legs that go beyond the credits. We already know it does, so the final minutes are slightly worrisome in terms of how they're planning to move forward with this prospective mini-franchise. It takes skill to craft an effective popcorn-style thriller just once, so even if there's good reason to be optimistic, churning out inferior follow-ups can easily land it on the list of failed horror franchises best appreciated for their first entry. Despite the closing minutes oversharing exactly how much potential the idea has, I'd still gladly watch an Escape Room sequel that promised to be as fun as this.