Twisters 7.5/10
Up to 7.9 if your a storm chaser or huge fan of the original.
Pros: Hey look , real character development. Great actors, and a decent idea (albeit a totally unrealistic one. Overall the effects were done very very well, and were not in your face every scene. They let this one breath, but I am already hearing the younger people call it boring and slow. Most importantly , we got a little more than cookie cutter level characters from this one. Granted the "background" people were the typical fare, but the mains had some depth to them. Also kudos for not inserting a romantic subplot where someone get the girl and the kids at the end.....
Cons: some heavy borrowing from Twister, that's was totally not needed in this film. Wacky crew could have been mostly cut and nothing would have been lost. Also , it did feel a bit like they were glorifying the really stupid behavior many storm chaser engage in for views. As a chaser, these people are dangerous and should not be show and "fun and crazy" , it's a disservice to the science and it's gotten people killed and will continue to kill more. They needed a scene where Youtube chasers get killed violently, instead of a scene where the "hero" does something totally wreckless to good ol" American country music.
In a personal note, as a horse rider and owner, showing "good ol' fun" as a rodeo where animal are abused for entertainment was a huge turnoff. Tie the balls of a horse so tight that it bucks is disgusting American pastime, that should be outlawed. Can you imagine people being ok with tying a dogs balls off to make them entertain us? But because it's cowboy nonsense it's still tolerated. We get disgusted at bull fights , but constantly abusing horses is AOK.... YaY Merica!
For the chasers review: The opening scene felt very much like a nod to El Reno and its Meso dropping on the chases from the Twistex team. As tragic as Tim's team deaths were, it's important to highlight that these storms are dangerous, and one that looks like a mild F2 can become a monster in 30 seconds.
Later of course , we actually SEE the large one hit EL Reno, which I kinda felt was in poor taste. I fully expected an after film statement on screen that said the film was dedicate story the town of El Reno and the twistex team.....it would have made those obvious nods more palatable given the high number of casualties and the film trying to justify a characters motivation in helping storm victims .