As the year soon comes to an end, I’ve been catching up on 2024 movies I didn’t have the chance to see in theaters, including Twisters now that it is streaming for those with a Peacock subscription. I’ll admit, I didn’t have high expectations for the sequel to the ‘90s classic over the summer, but after hearing some buzz from other people, including through our positive Twisters review, I pressed play at home over the Thanksgiving holiday, and was really impressed with how Universal handled reviving the classic. Let me share why!
Before I get into it, I should state that I grew up with the original Twister movie, and while I haven’t rewatched it many times, I think it’s a solid movie I have fond memories watching. With that in mind, I really didn’t want to see a rerun or less-than retread of the concept, but happy to say I was wrong about the benefits of another Twister movie nearly 30 years later.
2024 Has Had A Wild Amount Of Nostalgic Sequels, But Twisters Feels Different
I don’t know about you, but after how refreshing the prior year was with original movies like Oppenheimer and Barbie leading the pack, I’ve been a bit over-nauseated with sequels in 2024. The biggest films of the year thus far have been things like Inside Out 2, Deadpool & Wolverine, Despicable Me 4, Dune: Part Two, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, Kung Fu Panda 4, Venom: The Last Dance, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Moana 2, Bad Boys: Ride or Die, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, Alien: Romulus and Gladiator II. See where I’m going with this? I’m not even naming all of them and that’s a massive list of sequels.
So at this point, we’ve all seen (even this year alone) how Hollywood handles retreading of concepts and giving characters callback moments to invoke a sense of nostalgia. Sometimes it really works, other times it’s been rather tiresome to see over and over.
Now, Twisters doesn’t have any of the original cast of the 1996 movie. So while it’s technically a sequel, it totally skips over some of the things that bothered me in movies like Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, or honestly Alien: Romulus, when it even repeated an old line despite it being a completely different cast. (Is writing new dialogue so difficult?) You could definitely draw some comparisons between Twister and Twisters in its overarching storyline, but I didn’t feel like they were mining me for nostalgia the way so many sequels do.
Twisters Doesn’t Need To Lean On The Original To Be Interesting In Its Own Right
Further, I think what especially works about Twisters, is the attention to detail with character and storytelling that feels like it’s giving you a disaster movie about tornadoes for a new generation that shares DNA with the original, without being too precious about it. From the beginning of Twisters, I became invested in Daisy Edgar-Jones’ character of Kate, who loses a lot during her own run-in with a EF5 tornado while storm chasing with a great purpose.
The main story follows Kate five years after facing tragedy when one of her friends (Anthony Ramos’ Javi) asks her to go back in the eye of the storm with her to make a difference, and she cannot say no. It’s then when she meets Glen Powell’s charismatic Tyler, an internet sensation of a storm chaser who has his own team alongside Kate and Javi’s.
While I came into Twisters because I had liked the original movie and was curious how they would follow it up, this movie is completely engaging and interesting without having seen the ‘90s classic. And as someone who has invested in Twister as a favorite from the era, I respect how writer Joseph Kosinski and director Lee Isaac Chung went their own direction with it, while also keeping the spirit the original offered.
They understood that I don't want to see the same movie twice. That's why the original is there, though they did bring something new to the original story by introducing new characters and a modern spin, which I did, in fact, want to see.
And, I Appreciate That Twisters Didn’t Try To Shoe-Horn In The Original Cast
By the time Twisters reached its ending, I was invested in Kate and Tyler’s journey and not even thinking about how I wanted to immediately watch the original. Yes, I was even hoping they would get the kiss that was famously cut by Steven Spielberg. When it comes to the Twisters franchise, I know I’ll either go to one or the other knowing they both are high-quality disaster movies that give me a healthy fear of tornadoes with great performances, stories and character development.
So many filmmakers would have felt the need to bring in Helen Hunt in the third act to tie together the two movies and have that a-ha cameo moment people love to talk about after being surprised by it. But it’s come to the point where I was actually surprised when it didn’t happen and felt quite relieved that Twisters didn’t bend over backwards just to connect the two films, because that would be the obvious route.
Sure, there was “Dorothy” from the previous movie to connect the two, but I like how that was a small way for the filmmakers to nod to the original before going forward with how a movie about tornado research works in 2024 with a story that has its own interesting human dynamics. As you may recall, the original was about two exes (who are both in the storm chasing world) who are getting ready to divorce as their perilous adventure occurs, while this movie borders on a Pride & Prejudice-like romantic dynamic.
Sure, I didn’t see Twisters in theaters, or in 4DX as a lot of people were talking about going to over the summer. But I’m happy I caught it! While I technically liked Alien: Romulus and Inside Out 2, for example, a tad more, I love the heck out of Twisters more than many nostalgic sequels in 2024 due to how the storytelling was handled in a fresh, different way that saw me as a clever audience member who wants more than a retread of a movie that already exists.