Twisters (2024) review

In-name-only "sequel" to the 1996 summer blockbuster (with Bill Paxton) has once-ambitious meteorologist Kate Carter (Daisy Edgar-Jones), who tried running an experiment using "non-toxic" materials to stop a tornado but wound up getting her friends killed, working in NYC but recruited by former associate Javi (Anthony Ramos) to return to Oklahoma to continue doing research, which is where she meets Tyler Owens (Glen Powell), a "storm chaser" who broadcasts his adventures on YouTube.  When I saw the original in the theater I thought it was horrible, and this isn't an improvement: the characters lack dimension - Kate is a "purist," Tyler is cocky but secretly intelligent, Javi seems nice but has a hidden agenda, etc. - and while it thinks it's grounded in "reality," it's just a laughable B-movie with a heftier budget (and an absence of sharks), and mostly has the cast squintin' and hollerin' at the sky and fields (notice how the wheat blows! check out all that dust!) as country songs blast on the soundtrack.  It makes the Sooner State look like a wasteland where no sane individual would ever want to settle down, and yet ironically there's no mention of global warming ... presumably not to alienate Confederate viewers who deny such a thing even exists: as Tyler says, "It's part science, part religion" ... so pray for the storms to go away.