Sometimes you just have to go back to the basics.

“Twisters” is the standalone sequel to the 1996 film that starred Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt. This time around, the plot follows a group of storm chasers (Daisy Edgar-Jones, Glen Powell, Anthony Ramos, Brandon Perea, and Sasha Lane) who try and use experimental means to stop a tornado; Lee Isaac Chung directs.

Much like “Dune: Part Two,” the cast here is a who’s who of up-and-coming stars. The rise of Glen Powell in the last six months has been well documented thanks to “Anyone but You” and “Hit Man,” and Daisy Edgar-Jones has also been on folks’ radar with the likes of 2022’s “Where the Crawdads Sing” and “Fresh.” The rest of the cast is either coming off breakout roles (Katy O’Brian in “Love Lies Bleeding” and Brandon Perea in “Nope”) or have big things on the horizon (David Corenswet is the next Superman), and together they help deliver a fun (if not a style over substance) summer blockbuster.

I liked Lee Isaac Chung’s 2020 film “Minari,” a film that landed him two Oscar nominations, so to follow it up with a $200 million studio picture is always a risky career move (though I’m sure his bank account isn’t complaining about the move). Chung is able to create some tender human moments between Edgar-Jones and Powell when the storms aren’t raging, a thing he did well in “Minari.” That isn’t to say he can’t direct an action sequence, however, because I thought they were pretty intense.

Right from the opening, it’s clear that Chung is not afraid to put any and all characters in danger, and we actually get a lot more deaths than I was expecting. Much like the original film, the tornados in the film almost feel like monsters with a personal vendetta against the main characters, and every storm scene has a blend of fun and intensity about it. Sometimes the film can’t decide if it wants the characters (and ipso facto, the audience) to be enjoying the fact a group of people are driving into the eye of a tornado or sweating about it, which creates some light tonal issues, but the sequences are fun nonetheless so it’s not a huge detractor.

I invested in Glen Powell stock early (way back in 2014 with “Expendables 3”), so I’m ecstatic to see him finally getting his chance to be a leading man. If Timothée Chalamet is the next Leonardo DiCaprio then I think Powell could be the next Kevin Costner, making crowd-pleasing dad movies and the occasional rom-com. I’ve seen some people call Powell the next Tom Cruise, and I would stop short of agreeing until we see him pull off a “Magnolia” or “Born on the Fourth of July,” but Powell has established himself as a star, and playing an internet famous tornado wrangler with an ego but heart of gold suits him.

Daisy Edgar-Jones isn’t given too much to do with her character but I do think she does a good job here and shares an innocent chemistry with Powell, and Maura Tierney shows up for two scenes and does what she does best (effectively play a tender mother role).

The film does lull a bit when the titular storms are not raging, and we get a few repetitive story beats (and a few barely resolved ones). The whole reason Edgar-Jones is out in the field is to “disrupt a tornado” and the film tries to continuously explain it in a way that makes itself sound smart while also having the audience follow along, but at the end of the day it feels like it could have been explained in a brief spoon-fed monologue at the start of the film and left at that (this is a big, dumb summer blockbuster; you get some leash with your screenplay).

“Twisters” is a crowd-pleasing blockbuster with some great sound mixing (at least in the storm scenes) and an attractive, up and coming cast. I think it is about as good as the original film, so if you have a good time watching that then this is more of the things you’ll enjoy (on the same note, if you weren’t a fan then I can’t see this converting you). In a year where horror films like “Longlegs” were overhyped and “A Violent Nature” was a letdown, leave it to the movie where the only monster is a spinning storm cloud to be one of the scariest (yet most fun) titles to-date.

Critics Rating: 7/10