Twisters (4K UHD Review)
- Review Date: Dec 16, 2024
- Format: 4K Ultra HD
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Director
Lee Isaac ChungRelease Date(s)
2024 (October 22, 2024)Studio(s)
Universal Pictures/Warner Bros. Pictures/Amblin Entertainment/Kennedy Marshall (SDS/Universal Studios Home Entertainment)- Film/Program Grade: B+
- Video Grade: A
- Audio Grade: A+
- Extras Grade: C+
Review
Twenty-eight years after Jo and Bill Harding proved the biggest tornadoes can be studied with an experiment called Dorothy, a new generation of young scientists is following in their footsteps. Enter Kate Carter (Daisy Edgar-Jones), Javi (Anthony Ramos), and their team of meteorology post-grads from Muskogee State in Oklahoma. Kate’s goal is to prove that tornadoes can be “tamed” by deploying sodium polyacrylate beads to suck moisture from the atmosphere and thus weaken the funnel. But on their first try, the storm unexpectedly grows into an EF5 and wipes out most of their team.
Years later, Kate is working for NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), watching as the worst storms grow ever more frequent, when she’s approached by Javi. Supported by private financing, he’s launched a company called Storm Par that hopes to use military-grade radar to study tornadoes in 3D. To get close enough though, he needs an expert… and that’s Kate. Reluctantly returning to the field, Kate is haunted by the mistakes of her past. And matters aren’t helped when the popular YouTube storm chaser Tyler Owens (Glen Powell) and his cavalier team of live-streaming “Tornado Wranglers” arrive on the scene and races them to every twister. But as Kate, Javi, and Tyler size each other up, they realize that only by trusting themselves—and each other—can they accomplish their goals.
Here’s the most important thing you need to know about Lee Isaac Chung’s Twisters: It’s a surprisingly entertaining film. It delivers everything you want from a sequel to Jan de Bont’s Twister (reviewed here in 4K) and then some. Written by Mark L. Smith (from a story by Joseph Kosinski, the director of Top Gun: Maverick, also reviewed here), it’s also a smart film—this script doesn’t miss a trick. (Javi’s demonstration of his Storm Par radar using a spoon, a glass of water, and three restaurant syrup cups is an elegant example.) Not only does it take full advantage of the fact that Twister (combined with the rise of social media) launched a legion of real-life storm chasers (including IMAX filmmaker Sean Casey, Reed Timmer and his “Dominator” crew, Josh Wurman, and Tim Samaras, all of whom appeared on the Discovery Channel’s popular Storm Chasers series), it also finds clever ways to subvert your expectations from the original film. And the ensemble cast rises to the challenge. Not only is Edgar-Jones charming and believable in her role (she’s much more than a budget Anne Hathaway), Powell brings every ounce of the wise-ass charisma he first revealed in Top Gun: Maverick. In addition, the film’s snappy direction, effective cinematography, and genuine embrace of authentic mid-country Americana all work together well to elevate these proceedings.
Twisters was shot on 35 mm photochemical film by cinematographer Dan Mindel (John Carter, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Star Trek) using Arriflex 235, 435 ES, and 535B cameras, as well as Panavision Panaflex Millennium XL2 cameras, with Panavision Primo, Retro C-, E-, G-, T-Series, ATZ, AWZ2 and Angenieux Type EZ anamorphic lenses. Note that some visual effects were shot in Super 35 format. The film was finished as a 4K Digital Intermediate for theaters mostly in the 2.39:1 aspect ratio, though a few segments (Kate’s video logs and drone footage) appear at 1.78:1 within the 2.29 frame. Universal’s 4K release includes both HDR10 and Dolby Vision HDR. Image quality is excellent overall, with crisp and abundant fine detail, light organic grain, and clean, refined texturing. The film’s palette is muted but natural looking, while the high dynamic range grade offers very deep blacks, bright (if not truly bold) highlights, and pleasingly nuanced colors. The title is encoded on a UHD-100 disc, with video data rates in the 60-70 Mbps range (though the disc also includes some extras encoded in 4K as well). Essentially, this is a terrific looking image, though quite not one that truly dazzles in the eye-candy sense—not due to any kind of deficiency in the 4K presentation, but simply because of the nature of the film itself.
Audio-wise, the 4K disc includes its primary audio in English Dolby Atmos, with additional tracks available in French 7.1 Dolby Digital Plus and Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital. The Atmos mix is fantastic, delivering all of the sonic bluster and rumbling bass you’d hope for in a mix like this. Wind whips and swirls around the listening space. Tornados growl and shriek as flying debris sweeps from channel to channel. The height channels add scale to every storm sequence, making the film’s F4s and F5s sound as big as they look. Dialogue remains clean and well positioned, while both the Benjamin Wallfisch score and the soundtrack of pop/country hits (by the likes of Luke Combs, Miranda Lambert, Megan Moroney, and Jelly Roll) add energy to each scene. Optional subtitles are included in English SDH, Spanish, and French.
Universal’s 4K release includes the film on both UHD and 1080p Blu-ray. Both discs include the following special features…
- Audio Commentary with Lee Isaac Chung
- Deleted Scenes (4K – 3 scenes – 2:04 in all)
- Gag Reel (4K – 3:57)
- Tracking the Front: The Path of Twisters (4K – 14:53)
- Into the Eye of the Storm (4K – 24:07)
- Glen Powell: All Access (4K – 3:12)
- Front Seat to a Chase (4K – 5:16)
- Voice of a Villain (4K – 6:16)
- Tricked-Out Trucks (4K – 4:31)
The director’s commentary is detailed, insightful, and constantly interesting. One thing that’s abundantly clear to me is that Lee Isaac Chung is talented, thoughtful, and knows what he’s doing. I’m looking forward to seeing where his career goes next.
There’s not much substance to either the deleted scenes or the gag reel, but it’s still nice to have them included here. The former is just a trio of little moments, and nothing that adds significantly to the story. The six featurettes amount to about an hour of behind-the-scenes material—not a lot to be sure, but enough to give you a pretty solid look at the production, and a better sense of the actors, the filmmaker’s approach to the material, etc. The two longer pieces are no-frills meat and potatoes content. The other four are tater tots. But Voice of a Villain is a good look at how the sound of the twisters is created with the help of supervising sound editors Al Nelson and Bjørn Ole Schroeder, and supervising sound editor Christopher Boyes. In addition, Front Seat to a Chase highlights the work of meteorologists Sean Waugh and Kevin Kelleher to ensure authenticity here, not to mention the aforementioned Sean Casey, who shot the real storm footage seen and referenced in the film. There’s also a Movies Anywhere Digital code on a paper insert in the packaging.
Bottom line: Much like Top Gun: Maverick before it, Twisters is better than it has any damn right to be. This is a sequel that takes everything you liked about the original film, updates it for the times, and finds clever ways to make things feel fresh and surprising, all while packing every ounce of the thrills and spectacle you expect. And that’s a pretty nifty trick. Universal’s 4K release brings the audio/visual goods as well, and it’s definitely recommended for fans of the format.
- Bill Hunt
(You can follow Bill on social media on Twitter, BlueSky, and Facebook, and also here on Patreon)