Twisters (Night of the Buttsters 2: The Suck Zone)

[TheStuboy]

It's been nearly 30 years since the first Twister film hit theaters and blew everyone away. For 1996, the special effects at the time were awe inspiring. Flash forward to 2024. Buttsters has come out and will suck you up right out of the theater. You better not let go like those stu people do in the theater scene. This movie has many more times the people getting sucked up than the first one ever had. It also has a lot more tornadoes. Whereas the first film started as an F1 and ended with an F5, this film fixes several major problems with the first film. The science is better in Twisters. They tell you to not be stupid and hide under an overpass during a tornado. It will rip your clothes off and you'll go heaaaaaah as you get blown away.

Buttsters has Daisy Edgar-Jones who I'm familiar with but not sure where. It also has Glen Powell, as the Arkansas Tornado Rangler/Live youtube streamer celebrity guy.

He's got fancier technology, he's got a team full of hippy hessians, he's got a million subscribers on YouTube.
There are storm chasers out there that echo the ones in this film. Some are in it for the fame. Most are in it for the science. A few are in it for actually helping people.

There are some intense tornado scenes in this film including one that mirrors the first film's drive-in sequence. Twisters does a better job ramping up the tension and this reviewer even said "holy shit" a few times. There's a scene about a third of the way in where it's just like woaah. It has to deal with fire.

The film makes a lot of callbacks to the original, and as I said, corrects some pretty big science problems the first one had. I guess they didn't want to dumb it down this time? This isn't a spoiler, Glen Powell's character has a scene where he explains the EF rating system. He says you can't judge what rating a tornado is just by looking at it, something the first film totally got wrong.

Alas, there is no Rabbit. No Upham. No Dusty (RIP) . No Bill (RIP), no Jo, and no aunt Meg. There are also no stiff dogs, or bad acting from Bill Paxton's girlfriend who won't be there... I'm not upset... what does that mean? There is a lot more tornado. Whenever the tornados are on the screen, this is where the film shines. I didn't care for a couple of the characters and I understand what they were going for but I don't think the good versus evil side is resolved as well as it should've been. Either go Cary Elwes' driver getting a radio tower shoved through his body, or don't.

Anyway, Buttsters is a solid ride. It's not going to be the first film by any means. It is watchable. It is fun. It is balls to the wall a couple times. The pay off could've been better but I think they're setting up for a sequel. This film is doing well at the box office.

Buttsters gets 3.8 stars out of 5. It's got a few flaws, but the special effects are amazing. No way could this have been accomplished with 1990s CGI.