The Twisters

I spent $10 and 20 minutes buying this 2024 movie, thinking it was the one in theatres. At first I loved the cheesy corny over the top dialogue and acting. Terrible CGI. My boyfriend hated it, but I was all "wait! They had the money to pay A-list actors and tons of great trailers. It's just an homage to cheesy movies like the original Twisters." Kept waiting for Glen Powell's face. 20 minutes in, I googled it, and realised we (I was) were duped. Why release a movie with basically the same title (*The* Twisters) and the same concept in the same year as a super popular movie? Just a waste of $10.

This movie definitely lives up to its name - it's a whirlwind of confusion, poor acting, and a script that feels like it was written during a coffee break. The plot, if you can call it that, meanders aimlessly without any clear direction. The characters are so one-dimensional that they make cardboard cutouts seem complex. The dialogue is cringe-worthy, filled with clichés and awkward pauses that had me wondering if the actors were reading from cue cards.

The cinematography, which should have been the film's saving grace, is nothing short of amateurish. There are moments that seem to be shot with a shaky hand, and the lighting is so inconsistent that I half-expected to see a crew member walking through the frame.

The special effects, meant to depict the titular twisters, are laughable at best. Instead of feeling the thrill of nature's fury, I felt more like I was watching a low-budget theme park ride malfunction.

Overall, it's a boring mess, but if you have some time to waste and want a bunch of laughs, give it a shot. Better yet, save yourself the trouble and skip this one!

Frustrated that his new AI-generated software isn't as accurate as it could be, a scientist named "Dr. James Garland" (Mark Justice) hacks into a newly created weather transponder system without the inventor's permission. When his boss, "Dr. Janet Evans" (Tiffany Renee Dwarish), learns of this, she immediately advises him to seek permission from the owner of these tracking devices. The problem is that the owner happens to be James Garland's sister, "Dr. Erica Garland" (Kayla Fields), with whom he has been estranged since a weather-related disaster several years earlier. Compounding the issue is that, according to James' new program, a severe series of potentially catastrophic tornadoes is projected to hit the United States within a few hours, and without the two of them working together, thousands of lives are at risk. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that my hopes for a quality film were immediately diminished as soon as I realized it was an Asylum production. Regrettably, my initial reaction was correct, as many of the absurd scenarios were almost as bad as some of the acting, especially from Tiffany Renee Dwarish and Curtis Strong (as "General Murphy"), who appeared to be reading their lines from a cue card. Likewise, the way an Army officer at a meteorological center directed Air Force pilots was equally ridiculous. Be that as it may, I didn't particularly care for this movie and have rated it accordingly.

Unreal! As I walk in the room and see this being purchased I yell "Noooooooo!", it was the wrong movie. Was trying to buy Twisters 2024. Bravo for this company for being able to trick so many people with a release of a similar movie with a similar name. Hopefully more people pay attention when purchasing a movie so they are not tricked into buying a cheap knockoff of a blockbuster that might get a 15 minute view before being shut off. This film will now sit in the graveyard of unwatchable accidental Apple purchases- luckily out of a couple thousand purchases this is number 4 in that graveyard.

Leave it to The Asylum to bring a movie called "The Twisters" onto the table following in the wake of the former movie "Twisters" also released earlier this year. Even before sitting down to watch this movie, there wasn't a sliver of doubt that this was going to be a movie from The Asylum. And voila.

Writer Jeffery Anderson put together a fair enough script, and in all honesty this wasn't as bad as you would other assume from a movie spewed out by The Asylum, and one riding on the success of "Twisters" nonetheless. I was actually adequately entertained throughout the course of this movie.

However, it is a rather stereotypical and predictable movie, and I just love how all the bad things that happen in the movie because of the winds happen to take place right around the main characters and interfering with their oh-so-plausible plan to thwart Mother Nature. It was ridiculous, and I am amazed that writers still conjure up scripts like this where a small group of people go against the forces of Mother Nature with a ludicrous plan to save Planet Earth and emerging victorious. It is a formula that has been wore thin and down to the bone.

Of the entire cast ensemble, I was only familiar with actor Paul Logan. While I was not familiar with the actors and actresses on the cast list, I will say that the acting performances were fair.

Visually then "The Twisters" was not as bad as you otherwise expect when sitting down to watching a movie from The Asylum. The CGI effects were actually good. Sure, the movie also made use of some stock footage of tornado aftermath, which felt a bit cheap, but it played out well enough.

My rating of director Michael Su's 2024 movie "The Twisters" lands on a five out of ten stars.