With over 1,200 tornadoes hitting the US every year, Oklahoma sits within the heart of Tornado valley, one of the world’s most tornado-prone areas with at least 59 tornadoes hitting every year. It is in fact known as the Tornado Capital of the World!
This is the setting the American disaster film, Twisters with six storm chasers – Daisy Edgar Jones (Kate Carter), Javi (Anthony Ramos), Addy (Kiernan Shipka), Praveen (Nik Dodani), and her boyfriend, Jeb (Daryl McCormack) in it.
Beading into a tornado, the team launches barrels of sodium polyacrylate in hopes of reducing the intensity of the tornado and securing funding for further research. However, finding themselves amidst an EF5 (Enhanced Fujita scale) which Is rated as one of the strongest tornadoes. Once the storm calms down and the amount of chemicals is found to be insufficient to stop the tornado, Addy, Praveen, and Jeb are killed, leaving only Kate and Javi as survivors.
A film which is produced by Frank Marshall and Patrick Crowley by Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment production house, Warner Bros. Pictures and Universal Pictures. Adapted from a screenplay, this film has been directed by Lee Isaac Chung who is known for his work such as Minari, Lucky Life, Abigail Harm and Munyurangabo.
Known to be a sequel to the 1996 film, this film is actually a standalone film. While the film is completely fictional, it provides a glimpse into the real world of storm chasing and brings the audience up close to the wreaking damage created by a tornado.
With intense visual effects being used throughout the film, the tornadoes were CGI created and the storm was created using two jet engines, 10,000 gallon dump tanks and water cannons. What was even worth mentioning is how well the CGI tornadoes were with the characters running away from them. Six realistic tornadoes had been created for this film and what really stood out was that the tornadoes created very tangible things in the foreground.
The film, which was released at the Cineworld Leicester Square in London on July 8, 2024,was also released internationally by Warner Bros. Pictures on July 10, and in the United States by Universal Pictures on July 19.
Having grown up in a city that was constantly struck by tornadoes, I was thoroughly fascinated with the visuals of the up close effects of the cyclical feeling that a tornado gives.
The film which fast forwards five years after the EF5 incident, finds Jeb and Kate again together for one week as they test a new tornado scanning system using phased array radar. This leads to the collision of Kate and tornado wrangler – Tyler Owens who is also a YouTube sensation as a storm chaser. (He also is known as the tornado wrangler and flies drones and shoots fireworks into the tornadoes to be uploaded onto YouTube. He is also known for selling branded T-shirts and brands himself as a cowboy.)
Kate, who is a meteorologist joins Star Par, (Javi’s mobile tornado radar company) for the agreed one week to help Javi test a new tornado scanning system using phased array radar. She. Is joined by Javi’s business partner – Scott as they begin to track down the tornado.
However, looking to capitalise on this predicted tornado outbreak, popular YouTube storm chaser, Tyler Owens joins the chase with his crew – Boone, Dani, Dexter, and Lily, as well as British journalist Ben.
The film takes you on a journey where you can see each of the characters fighting for their lives against tornadoes. On the whole, there is some tension created in this film about controlling nature and riding its flow. Kate who is known to have been fascinated by tornadoes right from an early age also suffers from a trauma of one of her experiments’ having gone wrong, which when seen through the eyes of the film can be viewed as mechanical acting.
Other than this, the film should be watched just to explore the fascination of chasing a tornado down!
