Twisters

A tragedy forces meteorologist "Kate" (Daisy Edgar-Jones) back into the office where she spends her days monitoring weather events and advising on whether or not twisters may emerge and issuing any necessary alerts. Another of her erstwhile coleagues, "Javi" (Anthony Ramos) shows up with some military-grade technology that can be used to 3-D plot the phenomenon and that gets her back out into the field. That's where she encounters "Tyler" (Glen Powell) - he's a "tornado wrangler" who uses his guts to drive as close as he can to get great images for his lucrative You Tube channel. Her designs are more altruistic, though. She wants to map the things so she can develop a plan to seed them with super-absorbent polymers that will hopefully stop them in their tracks. A gently competitive scenario now develops between the two, but that is soon changed when she discovers that one of their backers in really in it for the fire-sale value of properties devastated by the sheer power of the twisters, and - of course - the remainder of the plot follows lines way more predicable than that of the whirlwind. It's really more of a whirlwind of another sort that takes over and that's a bit of a shame as it shows up the limitations Powell as an actor. Sure, he's the boy next door you wouldn't kick out of bed for eating Pringles, but here he's about as wooden as a washboard. Edgar-Jones isn't a great deal better and the writing seems uncertain as to whether we are to watch an action-packed adventure film or a cheesy romance with some contrived moralising thrown in for good measure. To be fair, there is an attempt at bringing some science into the story and the visual effects are genuinely exciting to watch as these amazing forces of nature wreak their havoc despite man's best efforts. It's a bit on the long side, but it's still perfectly watchable especially if you can appreciate the visual on a big screen. It's just a bit disappointing.