Before tornado movies threaten to become a cottage industry, just remember that in spite of both the bad ones and the forthcoming plans for more that are being assembled on the drawing boards as we speak, the only one that ever reached blockbuster status was the 1996 action epic Twister. In the realm of tornado movies, we now have Twisters. Erroneous publicity misleads us to consider it a sequel, which it isn’t. In fact, Twisters has nothing whatsoever to do with Twister, aside from the fact that it consists primarily of the same computer-generated special effects and it also takes place in Oklahoma, where the Richard Rodgers-Oscar Hammerstein corn is no longer high as an elephant’s eye, but on its way to almost total crop destruction thanks to not one but an army of lethal, never-ending new twisters that seem to arrive every ten minutes, and the wind comes sweeping down the plain with pulse-pounding noise and life-altering force.  

There is also something of an obstacle-riddled romance, but nothing as interesting as the one in Twister. (You can’t improve on Helen Hunt and the late Bill Paxton, and only a fool would try.) The new female centerpiece is Kate (Daisy Edgar-Jones), a lovely would-be scientist who grew up obsessed with weather, first shown in a prologue as a college student, placing some kind of gizmo inside the heart of a ferocious tornado in a dangerous project designed to record enough scientific data to give folks in the paths of devastating storms a better chance to prepare and run for their lives in advance of weather patterns. The research fails, killing three of her best friends who are blown away to Tornado Heaven, leaving Kate so depressed and disillusioned that she retires from studying the weather forever.

Five years later, she’s a meteorologist in a Manhattan research lab, safe and far away from the dangers of Oklahoma twisters. An old boyfriend named Jeb (Daryl McCarmack), one of the few survivors of the college tragedy five years earlier, appears suddenly and, for reasons known only by the screenwriter, talks Kate into returning to Oklahoma to track another deadly storm. Subplots about Jeb’s secret job working for a crook and a brief, aborted attempt to revive their stale romance are deleted fast between lightning flashes, ear-splitting wind tunnels and hail the size of billiard balls while Kate falls in with a new heartthrob named Tyler, played by drop dead Glen Powell, the fastest rising glamour-puss movie star since the young Robert Redford first appeared on the scene. The hot sparks between these two are leavened by their constant hostility. Kate and her crew aim to make a difference; Tyler is a storm tracker in it for excitement and adventure.  

References to the twister in The Wizard of Oz are annoying gimmicks inserted to inject some humor into the proceedings, including Tyler’s crew of storm chasers, with names like Scarecrow, Tin Man and Lion. But clearly, the only true wizards in Twisters are not in Kansas anymore—or Oz. They’re the fearless computer geniuses who have conjured up the fantastic special effects in this movie and made them work—the tractors flying through deafening decibel levels of howling wind and rain, the towns razed and obliterated by airborne trucks, barns, farmhouses, trees, chickens and even a rodeo. The thunderous effects they create would keep the Weather Channel in business for years.

The sets, lighting design, and computer-generated special effects are superb, enhancing the viewer’s fascination with the subject matter. By comparison, the humans in Twisters are so unimportant and so undeveloped they seem like interlopers. The one-dimensional plot is tedious and the charm, good looks and style of the two leads are the only elements of the film that try but fail to invigorate. There don’t seem to be any limits to Glen Powell’s charisma. Even his smile is in Cinemascope and Technicolor, and he can act, too—although the benign script by Mark L. Smith is so mired in technology about pollen counts, anchor funnels, velocity measurements and silver oxide, and Lee Isaac Chung’s mediocre direction is so camouflaged in technical obscurity that they don’t give Mr. Powell much of an opportunity to show what he can do. The love affair part of the film is so wholesomely family-oriented that it’s about as sexy as an algebra book. There isn’t even one single kiss. 

Fortunately, the action sequences are nothing bland or dull, adding up to a whale of entertainment. I guess my scoreboard reads: Twisters, 10. People: 0. In the end, Kate prepares to return to New York, Tyler wants to know when she’ll come back, and there’s evidence that a lot of unfinished business is waiting to be solved. Twisters 2, anyone?