Universal Pictures hopes to storm into blockbuster season with a flood of box-office receipts. In doing so, the studio is harnessing 1990s nostalgia with a non-sequel/non-reboot, Twisters, which heads back to Oklahoma nearly three decades after the original film starring Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt. The irony, of course, is that (knock on wood) storms of cinematic grandeur rarely strike that state anymore (Tornado Alley has largely shifted to the east), but again, nostalgia, baby. And Glen Powell (Maverick, Anyone But You) was happy to put on a cowboy hat and ride some cyclones, y’all.
Powell stars alongside Daisy Edgar-Jones (Fresh, Under The Banner Of Heaven), and Universal has yet to reveal whether an irritated cow will be floating through the sky, too. This has to happen, yes? If that’s the case, perhaps this movie can eclipse the $240 million haul of the 1996 film.
Plot
Expect absurdity. Powell’s character, Tyler, is known to his social-media followers as the “Tornado Wrangler.” April through September must be his hunting season, and perhaps also his mating season, because there’s more than a suggestion that Tyler will hook up with Edgar-Jones’ character, Kate, after they withstand the clutches of Mother Nature.
Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment is bringing the production values here, and as the title suggests, there will be more than one massive tornado raining down from the sky in a simultaneous way. Also, Kate didn’t even want to go tornado hunting, given that her character previously experienced a traumatic event related to a storm. However, she cannot stay inside a cushy, big-city meteorologist studio forever because there’s an action movie to be made.
Additionally, Tyler appears to have captured the Gen Z audience with Internet fame aplenty, and he also promises to have mastered some cutting-edge tracking technology. Here’s more from the synopsis:
[Kate] is lured back to the open plains by her friend, Javi, to test a groundbreaking new tracking system. There, she crosses paths with Tyler Owens (Powell), the charming and reckless social-media superstar who thrives on posting his storm-chasing adventures with his raucous crew, the more dangerous the better. As storm season intensifies, terrifying phenomena never seen before are unleashed, and Kate, Tyler and their competing teams find themselves squarely in the paths of multiple storm systems converging over central Oklahoma in the fight of their lives.
Cast
Glen Powell moves from sky-soaring and smart-ass romancing to tornado hunting as Tyler. Daisy Egdar-Jones flows into action mode as the storm-shy Kate. The film also stars Anthony Ramos, Kieran Shipka, Maura Tierney, and Katy O’Brian.
Release Date
Twisters swirls into multiplexes on July 19.
Trailer
Is that a cow-shaped billboard, perhaps? Those truly do exist in Oklahoma, so this trailer is going for at least some authenticity.
