Twister (1996) is a beloved classic for a reason. The cast is stellar with leads Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton backed up with a team of stars, including the late Philip Seymour Hoffman. It has the perfect amount of 90s cheese where a cow carried by a tornado can be played completely seriously and it manages to pull off both the danger and wonder of one of Earth’s most amazing natural phenomena.

Hot on the heels of other properties being dug up and given a sequel, Twisters is here to try to make it a double success, albeit as its own standalone endeavour. Gone are the cast from the 90s replaced by leads Kate (Daisy Edgar-Jones) and Tyler (Glen Powell). Javi (Anthony Ramos) plays third wheel here and the rest of the cast isn’t even really worth mentioning.

At the top of the film we get a nice subversion of the cast and their place in the movie, as compared to the first film. For those who maybe don’t remember, in the original, our protagonists were scrappy tornado chasers trying to make a difference with limited resources, good intentions and better instincts as they competed against corporate stooges with more money.

In Twisters this is inverted, with Ramos’ character acquiring dubious funds to get Edgar-Jones’ back in the chasing game – initially promised as a way to help the public, but ultimately for profit.

Powell’s character Tyler, on the other hand, is the scrappy one this time around. He’s a successful YouTuber (yes, really) who chases tornados to make content and sell merch. But he and his team are also shown to have hearts of gold as they always help those affected by the natural disasters, and use money from their merch to buy food for the displayed. Aww, so sweet.

This setting and its characters are fun but it simply comes nowhere close to the original movie. The comradery and sense of adventure that the first movie creates in its opening 20 minutes can’t be touched by the new movie in its entire runtime.

The problem is that the smaller characters are given so little to do that we’re not even going to discuss them, and the main three cast are such invincible paragons that they become boring.

A great example of this is, in the original movie, the team gathers for a meal and Philip Seymour Hoffman’s character explains how Paxton’s character got the name “Extreme” by drunkenly shouting at a tornado, while nude, and throwing a bottle of liquor at it. Not only does this endeavour you to the main and side characters at the same time, but the script backs this up with a great line from Paxton that he “killed” that old version of himself.

What do we get in Twisters? Characters who know everything and run around shouting nonsense like “fire up the hard drives” as they drive a good old ‘Merican truck into a tornado.

Unfortunately the cast and story is a major downgrade this time around. Even if we ignore the first movie and consider Twisters its own beast, there’s no story beat or character to latch onto here.

Story and characters may be forgiven by many if the effects are good and, well, they are. The tornados look and sound suitably deadly and it’s decently believable in the danger they present, even when characters comically get sucked up into the sky and it feels like some cartoon voice is going to say “I must go, my people need me“.

The only real roughness we spotted is some very obvious green screen when characters are looking out into the middle distance but, for the most part, the visuals – which may be the most important part of the movie depending on who you ask – are very solid.

Twisters is maybe the most popcorn movie of popcorn movies that we’ve seen in a few years and we can see why it’s being positioned as a big American Summer blockbusters. If you go in with those expectations, we think most won’t be disappointed.

At this point we have to mention that we saw this movie at a 4DX screening. Offered exclusively by selected Nu Metro theatres, 4DX features moving seats, strong fans to simulate winds and LED lighting that flashes at certain times.

We’ve seen Deadpool 2 and Mission: Impossible – Fallout in 4DX in the past and commented on those movies how it didn’t really gel with the source material and it could even be detrimental. For example, as Deadpool 2 features so much gunfire, those LEDs lights were working overtime for hours and left us with a migraine.

Twisters, on the other hand, may be the perfect movie to see in 4DS. The movement of the chairs and the strong fans are just about ideal for the rough rides and high winds that are seen in the movie and, if you can afford it, it may just be the best way to see this film.

At the time of writing a regular showing of Twisters is R110. A 4DX screening, on the other hand, is R210. Yes that is much more expensive but, if you consider that Ster-Kinekor is charging R210 for a 2D IMAX showing, the 4DX prices becomes more appealing.

Just try and eat your movie snacks in the quiet parts. The 4DX seat movement is so intense that you may spill and it would be a real shame to see such a popcorn movie without popcorn.

Some other aspects worth mentioning here is the music which we forgot about right as we exited the theatre, and those American trucks we mentioned earlier.

Now we won’t claim to know anything about real tornado chasing, but it’s our understanding that people in real life build custom vehicles that look more like tanks compared to the slightly modified street vehicles we see in both Twister movies.

This is a real shame as, from a narrative sense, the tornados feel less deadly when it’s implied that you can survive them in a bakkie that has had a weekend of modification done to it at a local workshop.

The custom, real world vehicles are also build like tanks to avoid projectiles of debris that can pierce through metal with ease, something that didn’t come up in Twisters a single time. Hell, not even the regular car windows broke a single time in the movie.

Again this lack of inherent danger really undersold what is supposed to be a disaster film and, while we’re not asking for people to be shish kebab’d be errant tree branches at every turn, we definitely could have dealt with some real world stakes of tornados. We needed something visceral instead of people almost harmlessly floating into the sky when the script calls for a death.

When the credits roll on Twisters it will be difficult for almost any audience member not to have had at least one big grin from the adventure and it leaves the movie as a decent and at least worthwhile legacy sequel. The 4DX element adds a lot to it, making this movie more of a roller coaster, and it needs this X factor to make up for the loss of 90s fun and excitement we can never get back.

FINAL SCORE: 6 OUT OF 10 (Regular screening)

FINAL SCORE: 7 OUT OF 10 (4DX screening)