It’s usually at the end of the review that I talk about a film’s MPAA rating, but I’ll twist it up for “Twisters.” Or rather, for its 1996 predecessor “Twister” and its all-time terribly-worded rating justification. The film was rated PG-13 for “intense depiction of very bad weather.” Yes, the depiction was intense, and yes, the weather was very, very bad, but those twisters were so violent and destructive that “weather” seems like the wrong word to describe them. They may as well have used the term “extreme windiness.” The twisters are similarly violent and destructive in “Twisters,” which is much more sensibly rated PG-13 for “intense action and peril, some language and injury images.”

The new film stars Daisy Edgar-Jones as Kate and Glen Powell as Tyler, two storm chasers with different reasons for traveling Oklahoma looking for tornadoes. She’s trying to set up a 3-D mapping system that will help scientists understand how tornadoes form and thus save lives. She used to think she could rig up a chemical reaction that could actually stop a fully-formed tornado, but a field test in the film’s opening moments turns deadly, so she has to settle for the mapping system endorsed by her old friend Javi (Anthony Ramos). Tyler wants to shoot fireworks into a tornado to make a cool visual that gets him subscribers on Youtube and increase his celebrity so he can sell tacky merchandise. Kate is glad to have the moral high ground, or so she thinks.

As the film progresses, Tyler shows he has more layers than Kate initially thought. He’s a learned meteorologist and a big-hearted humanitarian. It also turns out that Kate may have jumped on the wrong bandwagon. She and Javi are noble, but their team’s sponsor isn’t. Kate and Tyler find that they like chasing the storms together, helping recovery efforts together, and just plain spending time together. Cute squabbling turns to cute flirting. Please tell me it’s not much of a spoiler to find out that there’s romantic chemistry between the smoldering cowboy and the beautiful scientist.

Then there are the twister sequences themselves. I used to be terrified of tornadoes, but the fear mostly dropped off when I hit my teens. This movie may rekindle some of that fear, especially after the opening sequence. The rest of the sequences are fine. I was never unconvinced that there was danger afoot. One thing I knew going in was that twisters, while they can form quickly, don’t lend themselves to jump scares, so I was wondering what the film would have to do to push my buttons that way. There are two effective jump scares that made me scream for half a second and then laugh for several full ones.

You can probably guess the kind of experience that “Twisters” provides. It’s a PG-13 disaster movie. The action scenes, while fraught with mortal danger, aren’t going to feature anyone getting ripped limb from limb. The comedic and romantic scenes are perfectly predictable as well, with Edger-Jones and Powell having the pleasing chemistry I knew they’d have. Of the characters that survive among Kate, Tyler, Javi, and Tyler’s colorful team, I wouldn’t mind seeing these characters in more movies. I’m sure the filmmakers can come up with more creative storm scenarios. For now, this was exactly the movie I expected it to be, but I had a reasonably good time watching very bad weather.

Grade: B-

“Twisters” is rated PG-13 for intense action and peril, some language and injury images. Its running time is 117 minutes.

Contact Bob Garver at rrg251@nyu.edu.

Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Simu Liu, Nathalie Emmanuel

Director: Simon Cellan-Jones

Language: English

Animals are not merely equal to humans, sometimes their resistance ends up being far superior and far more rousing for us to witness as audiences in cinema. We recently saw the apes protecting their planet, what belonged to them. We wept when the adorable pet Hachiko waited for its master to come back even when we knew he would never. And then there are creatures that turn into monsters that revel in galloping their prey in the most hideous and monstrous of visuals. Think of Jaws, Jurassic Park, Anaconda. Films that can still send a chill down the spine.

We now get Arthur The King, where it’s a dog who’s the King and not its master, played by Mark Wahlberg. So what is the film all about? In 2015, in Costa Rica, Michael Light, an American runner, and his adventure racing team gets stuck on the first day after their leader takes the poor decision to kayak against the tide. Leo, one of the members of the team, is outraged that Michael has not paid attention to their opinions. This is how Wikipedia has described one half of the plot. The rest is mystery for those who would choose to watch the film now available on Lionsgate.

The visuals are stunning and the film keeps you on the edge of your seats. Cinematographer Jacques Jouffret sucks you in the world he shoots and handled ably by Simon Jones, the director. The dog, no, the king does a fine job of doing what these creatures do best- share a loyal chemistry with their master and save lives when needed. And since this is a film filled with some thunderous adventure, there comes an opportunity when Arthur literally puts his life to allow others in this game of life and death to survive.

It says a lot about where humanity is heading when you constantly root for animals more than humans. Okay, not to mention those creature features again where humans were being wiped out at the speed of light. But here, you root for the canine from the word go. And the director shoots their scenes with care and attention. Humans can fumble when it comes to acting, but infants and animals are the most natural and effortless, acting or not. The more they are not acting, the more they are. And the better for the film. And Arthur The King is no exception. A theatrical experience would have been much better since the film boasts off some adrenaline pumping action choreography and impressive visuals, a small screen won’t harm either. By the end, Arthur would have stolen the show, size of the screen notwithstanding.

Rating: 3 (out of 5 stars)

Arthur The King is now streaming on Lionsgate

Whether you want a job done right, or just done right now, do it yourself. That’s the fearless edict uniting first-time feature filmmaker Chris Stuckmann and his headstrong final girl Mia (Camille Sullivan) in the winding mystery of “Shelby Oaks.” 

An ambitious horror exploration born of the found footage format, which honors genre but rarely attempts to subvert it, this spooky procedural unearths a new kind of cold case for Neon — this one, fittingly acquired on the heels of the viral “Longlegs,” still running away with the box office now in its second week. When four internet ghosthunters known as the Paranormal Paranoids find trouble in an abandoned town, three turn up dead and the last (Sarah Durn) is never discovered. 

“Who took Riley Brennan?” graffiti across the surrounding Ohio area wants to know 12 years later. It’s very Derry and just one of many warm details that make Stuckmann’s universe, smartly but subtly shaped by EP Mike Flanagan, feel closer to a Stephen King joint than a “Paranormal Activity” successor. 

The police and public might be useless here, but Mia won’t give up. She doesn’t know if she believes in ghosts; what she does know is that her sister isn’t a liar. A true crime documentary picks up where the grainy footage recovered from the victims’ camera leaves off — examining the dead investigation through the eyes of a dogged loved one operating outside of a broken system. Something similar could be said of Stuckmann who, as a history-making champion of the Kickstarter campaign (his scrappy feature raised more than $1.3 million online), pulled off a small miracle getting his movie made this way. He’s a YouTube talent himself, known for complex video criticism and a deep love of genre. Using a story by him and his wife Samantha Elizabeth, Stuckmann makes his impressive but imperfect debut backed by a built-in fanbase already appreciative of his film philosophy.

Killers aren’t always afforded the opportunity to explain themselves, and after a movie review goes live, directors even less so. Stuckmann has made a poetic career out of appreciating the magic of production, graciously and methodically considering how a totality of factors impact what ends up on screen. Through his impassioned YouTube channel, which was founded in the very internet hey-day the “Shelby Oaks” opening recalls, Stuckmann has spent years bravely beating back cinematic shit-posting. Instead, he’s repeatedly emphasized his love of all things The Movies — rarely if ever lobbing “bad” criticism at anyone — and his mosaic-like feature reflects that affection back ten-fold. To critique his film then, it seems important and fair to say upfront that its existence is a good thing. As plainly put as a review this early can be (most audiences won’t see “Shelby Oaks” until sometime next year): Chris Stuckmann can indeed make a movie and, all things created equal, he should probably make more movies. That’s even truer if he’s able to keep his admirably pure production pipeline protected from business-minded studios.

Now, the hard part. 

As aggravating in its logic gaps as it is frustrating with its stop-and-go propulsion, this confused debut effort knows what it wants to be (a dryer, more cynical “Lake Mungo” maybe?) — but it isn’t that. There’s tremendous promise in the first twenty minutes, which in a bit of meta commentary has Stuckmann writing dialogue for news anchors who quietly mock viral creators and question whether Riley’s disappearance was somehow still just a hoax. (Shout out, lonelygirl15, long may she vlog!) And yet, much like a first-time marathon runner, the writer/director gets off to a stronger start than he can maintain. After a jaw-dropping opening, a collapse in the tension arrives mid-way through the second act — somewhere between Mia and her husband’s (Brendan Sexton III) second or third fight about vigilante justice and the baby they’re not having — and the suspense never recovers. 

Cops are rarely the answer to, well, anything, but it would do wonders to have absolutely anyone helping Mia get her investigation under control. Alone for most of the movie, Sullivan isn’t given nearly enough scene partners (blink and you’ll miss Keith David) and Mia wastes tons of screentime silently spinning her wheels. “Shelby Oaks” is the kind of movie that will show you montage after montage of old photographs, dream journals, and library documents — allegedly poured over by Mia for more than a decade — and then seriously ask you to join in her surprise when she inexplicably starts to piece together the facts she already had in evidence. 

The scares face diminishing returns too as Mia’s decision-making betrays her as an inconsistent, if not outright dimwitted, hero. Running through nightmarish scenes ranging in genre reference from hixploitaiton to gothic romance, the stunning surroundings photographed by cinematographer Andrew Scott Baird almost cover up for Mia’s baffling lack of intellectual direction. But what real person, pray tell, has their sister go missing for more than a complete Chinese zodiac cycle, only to spur of the moment visit a derelict prison… with an almost dead flashlight… in the middle of the night? The scene is pretty, but she seems like a moron.

It’s those obvious loose ends that allow “Shelby Oaks” to devolve into an unmotivated pursuit of an unremarkable character. The fault doesn’t lie with Sullivan (she does what she can!), but as Mia’s behavior makes less and less sense, her sister’s story grows equally confused. Pops of comedy suggest a self-awareness to some of the script (yes, at least one character will acknowledge that saying the name “Paranormal Paranoids” is orally atrocious) and yet there aren’t enough jokes throughout to classify it as a horror comedy. Toss in some well-intentioned but ill-conceived “Hereditary” inspiration that’s nothing if not gravely serious and for-the-love-of-funniness stops working as a believable excuse.  

That said, it bears repeating, Stuckmann should make movies. “Shelby Oaks” was obviously written by a critic, one with a near-legendary knowledge of the pop culture archives, and it’s directed with a palpable confidence that could lead to better things. Doubling-back to that marathon metaphor, Stuckmann finishes his race only somewhat worse for wear. He manages a beautiful final shot that, no matter what comes before it, is fun as hell and hints at what we’ll no doubt someday learn this freshman filmmaker does best. Easily the smartest journalist-turned-producer working in horror today, Stuckmann is going to be even better when he leaves “Shelby Oaks.”  

Grade: B-

A Neon release, “Shelby Oaks” debuted at Fantasia Fest 2024. It’s expected in theaters next year.