Jonathan Romney at Literary Review:
Twisters, with a budget estimated at $200 million, is that enduring Hollywood paradox: the blockbuster that uses capitalism as shorthand for moral corruption. We know from the start that Javi’s business is compromised just by seeing its natty corporate graphics. (It would be interesting to know the costs for the logoed Twisters T-shirts worn by the ushers at the London premiere.)
The film contains one nice trick for cinephiles. In a small-town cinema which briefly serves as a storm shelter, the film being projected is the 1931 Frankenstein, in which Colin Clive’s Promethean scientist attempts to domesticate the raging elements. Eventually, the cinema’s back wall and screen are ripped away, revealing the tempest outside – prompting us to forget movie spectacle for a moment and attend to the real. Indeed, throughout, we’re reminded that the true mission of Kate and co is not adventure but to protect people from messed-up nature (climate change is the subtext) and to help them when things get rough. The most memorable imagery in Twisters does not involve chaos and fury but the aftermath of tornado strikes – whole towns flattened to sprawling fields of debris, one of them inscribed with a zigzag, as if the tornado has carved its signature there, Zorro-style.
more here.
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