The Scene ‘Twisters’ Needed to Really Be a Great Blockbuster
Twisters, Lee Isaac Chung’s sorta-sequel, sorta-standalone follow-up to the 1996 blockbuster Twister, is all set to be the hit of the summer (until Deadpool & Wolverine comes out, anyway). It handily outperformed the box office expectations for its opening weekend, and audiences drawn in by the promise of fearsome tornadoes and Glen Powell in a cowboy hat will likely walk away satisfied.
If it hews a little too close to blockbuster conventions, well, there are worse things for a movie to do. But there is one thing the original Twister has that its follow-up lacks, something that might seem trivial at first glance but is, in fact, the heart of the film: that breakfast scene at Aunt Meg’s.
If you haven’t seen the original Twister, the breakfast scene comes after a particularly action-packed stretch. Tornado chaser Jo Harding (Helen Hunt) has just survived a close encounter with a twister, hiding with her estranged husband Bill (Bill Paxton) beneath a bridge until they’re out of danger. Working alongside Jo and her motley crew of storm chasers, Bill helps them get the best of their sneering archrival Jonas (Cary Elwes) before a couple of waterspouts form in a flooded field, thrashing their truck around and sending hapless cows airborne. (Although, as Bill suggests, it might just be the same cow blown in different directions.)