It’s become a thing we do lately to give an indie filmmaker with some acclaim under their belt, the keys to a big budget studio franchise. In the tradition of Rian Johnson directing a Star Wars movie after directing Brick, and Chloe Zhao directing a Marvel movie after directing Nomadland, and Colin Trevorrow directing the Jurassic World movies after directing Safety Not Guaranteed, we now have Minari director Lee Isaac Chung in the director’s chair for Twisters, the rebootquel(?) to the massively successful summer blockbuster Twister, which is still pretty fondly remembered to this day.

Twisters follows Kate (Daisy Edgar-Jones), a onetime storm chaser, now meteorologist with a desk job, traumatized by an accident involving a tornado that killed three of her friends. She is visited by Javi (Anthony Ramos), the remaining survivor of said incident asking her to join his team which is testing new equipment for scanning tornadoes. She then meets Tyler Owens (Glen Powell), a charming and successful YouTuber in a cowboy hat driving a pickup truck, who has a serious background but is kind of impossible to take seriously. First they bicker, and then a spark emerges between the two, and Daisy might get the opportunity to complete some unfinished research alongside him. And a bunch of idiots run towards tornadoes and then try to avoid being killed by them.

Twisters is a big, dumb summer blockbuster and when it’s fun, it’s quite fun. However, it’s only sporadically fun. And it’s never quite dumb enough. Lee Isaac Chung clearly wants to make a summer tentpole feature with something on its mind, and yet the film never addresses the realities of climate change, and how that has massively impacted the weather patterns involving natural disasters like tornadoes, increasing with every year since 1996. Chung wants to make a film with big, noisy action set pieces but also wants to stop the film dead in its tracks at the halfway point to show us the real world damage these storms leave and the kinds of people they affect. And it’s an interesting thought but it doesn’t really go anywhere and doesn’t make the story more compelling. There is also maybe a stronger focus on the human beings in this story, and less on the absurdity of the whole thing (there are no flying cows in this one) and honestly that brings the whole thing down a bit for me.

Glen Powell is charismatic as hell, and is giving you all that megawatt movie star energy he’s become known for. He’s bringing so much more to this film than it deserves, and he has solid-enough chemistry with Daisy Edgar-Jones. However, you get the idea that Glen Powell could have chemistry with a lamppost. Edgar-Jones is not given much to play here, really, and it’s unfortunate since she’s shown how good she can be in other projects. She’s doing a comes-and-goes twangy Southern accent and she looks at Glen Powell with a combination of suspicion and desire. That’s basically her whole character. And really this could be a story about the trauma she has lived through, how she deals with that, and why she just can’t let this part of her life go. If that were true, maybe her character could be more interesting. But we never really go there. And the way this movie ends, like the final few shots, kind of betray both actors, and as a result the viewer leaves the theater kind of unsatisfied.

There is a spectacular bench of character actors here, however. In addition to Anthony Ramos, who I’m starting to realize, might not have much range as an actor, we have Brandon Perea, Keirnan Shipka, Nik Dodani, David Corenswet, Sasha Lane, Daryl McCormack, Katy O’Brian and Maura Tierney showing up in supporting roles, and I could not believe how many people in this movie, showing up in bit parts, were people I knew from other films (I was going to attempt to list them but then this part got too long – look them up), but all people who make a strong impression here, even when the script is not doing them any favors. With the exception of Maura Tierney, who has been around forever, these are all young up-and-coming talents who I’ve enjoyed in smaller films. I would very much like it if this film became successful, giving them all more jobs moving forward.

Dan Mindel, who has shot a plethora of big Hollywood blockbusters, serves as Chung’s cinematographer here, and the film sure looks great. The tornado scenes have the requisite tension and fear in them, and it makes a difference that Mindel chose to shoot this on 35mm film as opposed to digital. The score and sound design also add to the immersive quality of those big action set-pieces.

Overall, Twisters is a perfectly serviceable summer blockbuster, but it never thrilled me. It’s pretty much beat for beat the 1996 Twister, but with updated technology. I would recommend seeing it in a theater because the visual experience is enjoyable enough to justify a few hours on a hot summer day spent in a movie theater. It’s fun, but never nutty or over-the-top enough to fully justify a life of its own. It’s also about 20 minutes too long. If Lee Isaac Chung were embracing this project for the sheer absurdity of it, we could have a really effective spiritual sequel on our hands here. Instead, it’s merely satisfied with ticking boxes and getting the job done. And those are not the movies we remember.