The Clone High revival has been cancelled by Max after two seasons, bringing the Clone saga to an end… again.

Clone High has, er uh, been cancelled after two seasons by Max, bringing the saga of the clones to an end… er uh, again.

“Although Max will not proceed with a third season of Clone High, we will always cherish our creative partnership with Chris Miller, Phil Lord, Bill Lawrence, Erica Rivinoja, Erik Durbin, Judah Miller, Corey Campodonico, Alex Bulkley, and the team at MTV Entertainment Studios,” Max said in a statement obtained by TVLine. “The incredibly talented voice actors, writers, cast and crew provided the opportunity to thaw out these legendary characters.“

The original Clone High series was created by Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, and Bill Lawrence, all of whom have returned for the revival. Dubbed a “modern refresh” of the original series, Clone High is “set at a high school for clones of historical figures. After a high school that was secretly being run as an elaborate military experiment to clone the greatest minds in history was put on ice, the clones have been thawed out 20 years later to resume the experiment with new clone classmates – all while navigating a new set of cultural norms and overly dramatic teen relationships.“

The returning cast included Will Forte as Abe, Nicole Sullivan as Joan, Phil Lord as Scudworth, Chris Miller as JFK and Mr. B, Donald Faison as George Washington Carner, and Judah Miller as Scangrade. Christa Miller, who voiced Cleo in the original series, instead voiced Candide Sampson. The role of Cleo was filled by Mitra Jouhari. The rest of the new cast included Ayo Edebiri as Harriet, Vicci Martinez as Frida, Kelvin Yu as Confucious, Neil Casey as Topher Bus, Jana Schmieding as Sacagawea, Sam Richardson as Wesley, Mo Gaffney as Ms. Grumbles, Al Madrigal as Frederico; Danny Pudi as Dr. Neelankavil, Emily Maya Mills as Ethel Merman, Michael Bolton as Michael Bolton, Mandy Moore as Mandy Moore, Ian Ziering as Ian Ziering, and Steve Kerr as Steve Kerr.

One of the original Clone High characters was not featured in the revival. Of course, I’m talking about Gandhi. The character sparked protests in India, as they were outraged by the show’s depiction of the real-life figure. In the revival, Gandhi was left on ice, with Lord saying, “The reason the show was cancelled in the first place was because of Gandhi, so we didn’t want to have it cancelled again before it even started.” Miller added, “We’re stupid, but not that stupid.“

I’ll admit that the Clone High revival didn’t quite hit the same buttons as the original did for me, but I’m still saddened that it’s been cancelled. What did you think of the series?

Ridley Scott teases that Gladiator II will open with biggest action sequence he’s done in his entire career.

It’s fair to say that Ridley Scott knows a thing or two about action, but the director tackled what could be the biggest action sequence of his career with Gladiator II.

“We begin the film with probably the biggest action sequence I’ve ever done,” Scott teased to Empire. “Probably bigger than anything in Napoleon.” The first trailer for Gladiator II teased quite a number of crazy action sequences, including a flooded Colosseum and a rampaging rhino. Speaking of that rhino, Scott had originally envisioned it for the first movie, but it was deemed too expensive at the time. Thanks to modern technologies, he was finally able to pull it off.

“Computerisation and AI — you have to embrace it,” Scott said. “I can have a computer read every molecule and wrinkle on a rhino and then cut it on a thick piece of plastic, absolutely as a rhino’s body, which is then tailored to a skeleton shape. I have this thing that can do 40 miles an hour, spin on the spot, wag its head and snarl. A two-ton rhino with a guy on its back! I mean, it’s a lot of fun.“

“From legendary director Ridley Scott, Gladiator II continues the epic saga of power, intrigue, and vengeance set in Ancient Rome,” reads the official Gladiator II synopsis. “Years after witnessing the death of the revered hero Maximus at the hands of his uncle, Lucius (Paul Mescal) is forced to enter the Colosseum after his home is conquered by the tyrannical Emperors who now lead Rome with an iron fist. With rage in his heart and the future of the Empire at stake, Lucius must look to his past to find strength and honor to return the glory of Rome to its people.“

Gladiator II is set to hit theaters on November 11th, the same day as Wicked, which has some hoping that we’ve got Barbenheimer 2.0 on our hands, including Gladiator sequel star Paul Mescal. “Wickdiator doesn’t really roll off the tongue does it? I think my preference would probably be Glicked if it has a similar effect to what it did for Barbie and Oppenheimer,” Mescal said. “It would be amazing ’cause I think the films couldn’t be more polar opposites and it worked in that context previously. So fingers crossed people come out and see both films on opening weekend.“

Florence Pugh jumped off the second tallest building in the world for an impressive stunt in the upcoming Thunderbolts movie.

We learned a lot more about Thunderbolts during Marvel’s presentation at San Diego Comic-Con over the weekend, but Florence Pugh dropped one more tidbit while speaking with Variety. When asked what was the most “massive stunt” she did in the upcoming Marvel movie, Pugh said, “Jumping off the second tallest building in the world” before making a quick exit.

For the record, the second tallest building in the world is Merdeka 118 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. At 678.9 m, only the Burj Khalifa in Dubai is taller, at 828 m. During the Thunderbolts Comic-Con panel, Pugh said, “I think we all feel cool doing stunts… This movie is so wonderful and bizarre, and it’s very brave and it’s because of this cast.“

In addition to Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova, Thunderbolts also stars Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes, David Harbour as Red Guardian, Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, Wyatt Russell as US Agent, Hannah John-Kamen as Ghost, and Olga Kurylenko as Taskmaster. Geraldine Viswanathan will also make an appearance, replacing Ayo Edebiri, who was originally attached. Lewis Pullman is also on board as The Sentry, taking over for Steven Yeun, who was cast in the role before he had to leave. Harrison Ford will also appear as Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross, reprising his role from Captain America: Brave New World.

Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige added that the group doesn’t take its name from Ford’s character, but when asked for an explanation regarding the asterisk in the title, he would only say, “You have to see the movie.” A trailer for Thunderbolts was also screened at Comic-Con, showcasing Yelena catching up with Red Guardian. We then see the individual characters tricked into meeting up, where they realize they’ve each been set up on dangerous missions. Valentina Allegra de Fontaine says, “We’re brought up with this belief that there are good guys and bad guys. But really, there are bad guys and there are worse guys.“

Thunderbolts* will be released in theaters on May 5, 2025, as the final installment of Phase Five.

The Apple TV+ series Time Bandits hasn’t premiered yet, but Jemaine Clement, Taika Waititi, and Iain Morris are already working on season 2

Back in 1981, director Terry Gilliam and his Monty Python cohort Michael Palin brought the world the cult classic fantasy adventure film Time Bandits – and now, Thor: Ragnarok and Thor: Love and Thunder director Taika Waititi has teamed with his frequent collaborators Jemaine Clement (Flight of the Conchords, What We Do in the Shadows) and Iain Morris (The Inbetweeners, Next Goal Wins) to create an Apple TV+ series version of Time Bandits. The first two episodes of the ten-episode first season will premiere on Wednesday, July 24th… and while doing the press rounds for the show, Clement revealed that season 2 is already being written!

Produced for Apple TV+ by Paramount Television Studios, Anonymous Content’s AC Studios, and MRC, Time Bandits is an unpredictable journey through time and space with a ragtag group of thieves and their newest recruit: an 11-year-old history buff named Kevin. Together, they set out on a thrilling quest to save the boy’s parents — and the world. The eccentric crew of bandits embark on epic adventures while evil forces threaten their conquests, and life as they know it. As the group transports through time and space, the gang stumbles upon fascinating worlds of the distant past while seeking out treasure, depending on Kevin to shed light on each situation. The “Time Bandits” witness the creation of Stonehenge, see the Trojan Horse in action, escape dinosaurs in the prehistoric ages, wreak havoc during medieval times, experience the Ice Age, ancient civilizations and the Harlem Renaissance, and much more along the way.

The cast of the series includes Lisa Kudrow (Friends), Kal-El Tuck (Unseeing Evil), Tadhg Murphy (Conversations With Friends), Roger Jean Nsengiyumva (You Don’t Know Me), Rune Temte (Eddie the Eagle), Charlyne Yi (Knocked Up), Rachel House (Heartbreak High), Kiera Thompson (Martyrs Lane), James Dryden (Ready Player One), Felicity Ward (The Office Australia), Francesca Mills (Harlots), and Imaan Hadchiti (Thor: Love and Thunder), with special guest appearances by Waititi and Clement.

Waititi, Clement, and Morris executive produce, write, and direct select episodes, with Clement and Morris serving as co-showrunners. Garrett Basch, Tim Coddington, and Handmade Films’ Jane Stanton also serve as executive producers.

While speaking to ComicBook.com, Clement and Waititi were asked if a second season has been discussed yet and if there’s a historical time period they didn’t get a chance to visit in the first batch of episodes that might make it into season 2. Clement answered, “We are actually writing a second season, but it depends on if people watch the first season. If no one watches it, we throw it away in a bin. But I cannot tell you because I don’t want to spoil the second season.“

The two episode premiere of the show will be followed by two new episodes every Wednesday through August 21st.

Will you be watching Time Bandits so there might be a possibility of Time Bandits season 2 going into production? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.

Twisters star Glen Powell pays tribute to Bill Paxton, the star and storm chaser of Jan de Bont’s 1996 thrill ride.

Last Updated on July 24, 2024

As Twisters churns and thrashes its way into theaters, one of the film’s stars, Glen Powell, is paying tribute to the late actor Bill Paxton, who helped make the first film a classic. Paxton starred alongside Helen Hunt in Jan de Bont’s 1996 action blockbuster as Bill Harding, an accomplished storm chaser on the verge of changing the way extreme weather patterns. Despite not getting along on set, Paxton and Hunt’s chemistry in Twister is electric, and the film would only be nearly as memorable with Paxton’s energy, bravery, and entertaining approach to the material. In a post on social media, Powell remembered the late Paxton, whom he worked with on the 2013 film Red Wing.

“As we release Twisters into the world today, I just wanted to look up and tip my hat to the legend that is Bill Paxton,” Powell shared on Twitter. “A great friend of mine who saw poetry in the natural world. His boots are impossible to fill, but this life is all about chasing the greats.”

As we release Twisters into the world today, I just wanted to look up and tip my hat to the legend that is Bill Paxton.

A great friend of mine who saw poetry in the natural world.

His boots are impossible to fill, but this life is all about chasing the greats.

🌪️❤️🌪️❤️🌪️ pic.twitter.com/Vlvpdfj4SG

— Glen Powell (@glenpowell) July 19, 2024

Twisters is off to a great start at the box office after whipping up $10M in previews. Some analysts think Twisters could spin up close to $40 million during its opening weekend, but others at BoxOfficeMojo say it could carve a path toward $60-75 million.

The official synopsis for Twisters reads:

Edgar-Jones stars as Kate Cooper, a former storm chaser haunted by a devastating encounter with a tornado during her college years who now studies storm patterns on screens safely in New York City. She is lured back to the open plains by her friend, Javi (Golden Globe nominee Anthony Ramos, In the Heights), to test a groundbreaking new tracking system. There, she crosses paths with Tyler Owens (Powell), the charming and reckless social-media superstar who thrives on posting his storm-chasing adventures with his raucous crew; the more dangerous, the better.

As storm season intensifies, terrifying phenomena never seen before are unleashed. Kate, Tyler, and their competing teams find themselves squarely in the paths of multiple storm systems converging over central Oklahoma in the fight of their lives.

Twisters features an exciting new cast, including Nope’s Brandon Perea, Sasha Lane (American Honey), Daryl McCormack (Peaky Blinders), Kiernan Shipka (Chilling Adventures of Sabrina), Nik Dodani (Atypical), and Golden Globe winner Maura Tierney (Beautiful Boy). From Amblin Entertainment, Twisters is directed by Lee Isaac Chung and is produced by Oscar nominee Frank Marshall (Jurassic and Indiana Jones franchises) and by Patrick Crowley (Jurassic and Bourne franchises). The screenplay is by Mark L. Smith, writer of the Best Picture nominee The Revenant.

Do you plan to check out Twisters this weekend? Let us know in the comments section below.

The first collaboration between McFarlane Toys and Marvel will feature figures of Spider-Man, Iron Man, Deadpool, and more.

Last Updated on July 24, 2024

With great power comes some pretty great looking action figures. The first-ever collaboration between McFarlane Toys and Marvel is now up for pre-order ahead of their September 24th mass release. Even more special, some of the designs are based on artwork by Todd McFarlane himself.

The Marvel properties that are slinging to the web this fall via McFarlane Toys are 1:10th scale figures of Spider-Man, Wolverine, Iron Man, and Deadpool, while Captain America gets the 1:6th scale treatment. Both Spidey and Captain America come from McFarlane’s own Spider-Man #6 and The Amazing Spider-Man #323, respectively, while he has gone back to the archives for Jim Lee’s Wolverine (X-Men #1), John Romita Jr.’s Iron Man (The Invincible Iron Man #126) and Rob Liefeld’s Deadpool (The New Mutants #8). You can check out detailed images and specs of each on the McFarlane Toys website.

When this Marvel lineup was announced in May, Todd McFarlane had the following to say: “For literally decades, thousands of Marvel fans and fans of my McFarlane Toys have deluged me with requests of wanting to see a Marvel and McFarlane Toys collaboration. Thanks to the invaluable support and collaboration from Marvel in making these new products a reality, I will now get this wonderful opportunity to not only be able to produce statue-like figures based upon my own artwork (who wouldn’t jump at the chance to turn their own 2-D drawings into 3-D reality?), but I will also have the great pleasure of being able to create products based upon some of the amazingly talented peers in our wonderful comic book industry. As fun as it will be to play with some of my own artwork, I am really looking forward to developing figures based upon the finest creators in comics. Get ready, everyone!”

Each of the Marvel figures in this initial lineup of McFarlane Toys comes with an environmental base and diorama backdrop, adding more dimension to the characters for your display case.

McFarlane has definitely assembled a strong lineup of Marvel characters here, with each serving as a tribute not only to the superhero but also the men who have spent years with them. Earlier this year, Deadpool co-creator Rob Liefeld announced that he would be stepping away from the Merc with a Mouth after more than 30 years. Romita Jr., of course, is the son of the legendary Marvel artist John Romita Sr., who passed away last year.

Will you be pre-ordering any of these McFarlane Toys Marvel figures? Which renditions do you want added to a future wave?

The Conjuring: Last Rites, the fourth and final Conjuring film, reveals character descriptions on a casting call

The Conjuring film franchise is set to come to an end with the fourth installment, The Conjuring: Last Rites, which Warner Bros. set to give the film a theatrical release on September 5, 2025 release. We had previously heard that this movie would be filming in the Atlanta, Georgia area, but apparently they’ll be doing some work across the pond as well, with filming scheduled to take place in London, England from September 10th through October 10th this year. Industry scooper Daniel Richtman has gotten his hands on a casting call that reveals some details on a few supporting characters that will be required on the set in London.

We don’t have any plot info on The Conjuring: Last Rites at this time, all we know that the story takes place in the United States in the 1980s, but thanks to Richtman and the casting call we know about these characters:

[ CARLY ]
7 to 9 years old, White girl. This character identifies as she/her. She is strong and spirited, youngest sibling, a twin. US accent. We are looking for a child with a deep emotional intelligence and the ability to convey strong emotions. Role for minor: requires no mature content. SIGNIFICANT SUPPORTING ROLE.

[ JASON ]
Man / 24-29 /White / Description: A young man experiencing the birth of his child…SUPPORTING

[ HILARY ]
Female / 24-29 /White. A young woman giving birth…SUPPORTING

The lead roles go to returning franchise stars Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga, coming back to play paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren again. Michael Chaves, who previously directed The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, The Nun II, and the Conjuring Universe-adjacent The Curse of La Llorona, is at the helm of The Conjuring: Last Rites, working from a screenplay written by David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick, who also wrote The Conjuring 2 and The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It.

Franchise producers James Wan and Peter Safran are producing the film, with Michael Clear and Judson Scott serving as executive producers alongside Hans Ritter.

Are you looking forward to The Conjuring: Last Rites? What do you think of the character descriptions on the casting call? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

The MCU officially launched with Iron Man but Marvel president Kevin Feige thinks Blade and X-Men deserve more credit.

Getting the Marvel Cinematic Universe to the point where it is today was like skating uphill. Sure, pretty much every one of them is going to put butts in movie theater seats – and many will even show up in costume or their favorite faux-vintage tee – but it wasn’t always a guarantee. Iron Man was a monumental risk in practically every front that, thankfully for the studio, paid off in dividends. But current Marvel head Kevin Feige doesn’t just look to Iron Man as the launching point but rather some perhaps unexpected choices.

Speaking with Deadline, Kevin Feige gave credit to a pair of Marvel movies that came before he stepped into his role in 2007, the year before Iron Man hit theaters. “I said for a long time that the one-two punch for Marvel, pre-dating me, was Blade and then X-Men. Blade was a character that nobody knew from the comics, or very few people knew. It wasn’t advertised as being from Marvel Comics. X-Men was the No. 1 bestselling comic for the 15 years before the movie came out.”

Feige added that Marvel properties like Blade ($131 million worldwide) and X-Men (just under $300 million worldwide and one of the highest-grossing of 2000) gave both himself and the studio confidence that there was so much more to what could work on the big screen than he imagined. “Both of them did extremely well, and that instilled in us the notion that it is less about how many issues did you sell or how famous was the animated show or the live-action series in the ’70s, but how engaging can you make the character, and how much of a new experience of a world can you bring to cinemas with that character.”

Of course, the studio has a lot on their docket right now, but Feige and company are still all-on on the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Phase Six – which officially launches with this month’s Deadpool & Wolverine – will even feature a revisition of the Blade character, while the X-Men will make their return with writer Michael Lesslie tapped to pen the screenplay. Hopefully we get some updates – however minor – on both at this year’s SDCC, where Marvel will be taking over Hall H.

Do you think Blade and X-Men deserve more credit for the comic book movie boom? If not, does it belong to Iron Man or another flick?

The Internet is scrambling to figure out who plays Lady Deadpool in Deadpool & Wolverine, but most think it’s Blake Lively.

Marvel Studios‘ Deadpool & Wolverine promises more cameos than you can shake a chimichanga at, but one character is sending the internet into a frenzy. The final Deadpool & Wolverine trailer features two highly anticipated appearances from niche Marvel characters, including a killer moment featuring Lady Deadpool slow-walking her way through a dust cloud. With hips better than Shakira’s and a long platinum blonde ponytail draped over her shoulder, Lady Deadpool looks drop-dead gorgeous and lethal. While Shawn Levy’s depiction of Lady Deadpool is enough to make pants fit tighter than usual, everyone wants to know who’s beneath the mask.

If you click around the internet, you’ll find fans speculating about who’s playing Lady Deadpool in Deadpool & Wolverine. While many thought Taylor Swift could be the blonde in the red pajamas, most think it’s Gossip Girl and The Shallows star Blake Lively. It makes sense that it would be Lively playing Lady Deadpool, as she would assuredly be Ryan Reynolds’ first pick for the part. Additionally, she’d kill it as Wanda Wilson, a character Marvel needs to feature in more comics. C’mon, Marvel! Let’s do a 5-issue mini-series featuring Wanda Wilson. I bet it would sell like hotcakes, especially after Deadpool & Wolverine hits theaters.

Someone other than Lively may play Lady Deadpool in the upcoming film, but good luck convincing the internet it’s someone other than Reynolds’ partner in crime and parenthood.

Marvel’s Deadpool & Wolverine is rated R for strong bloody violence, injury detail, sex references, and very strong language. This is relatively new territory for Marvel Studios, which has kept things PG-13 for its latest era of theatrical tentpole output. Before Marvel announced Deadpool & Wolverine’s ratings, fans let the studio know that anything less than a hard R would result in protest. Thankfully, Marvel heard the message clearly, giving Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman permission to cuss themselves blue in the face for their big-screen bromance.

Deadpool & Wolverine stars Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman as Wade Wilson and James Howlett, respectively. In addition to featuring the superhero team-up of the century, the threequel finds Wade and Logan sticking their dirty fingers into the Marvel Cinematic timeline, creating chaos while foiling a nefarious plot devised by Charles Xavier’s sister, Cassandra Nova (Emma Corrin). The MCU desperately needs a shake-up, and it sounds like Cassandra Nova and multiversal shenanigans could usher significant changes into the interconnected universe.

Deadpool & Wolverine also stars Morena Baccarin as Vanessa, Leslie Uggams as Blind Al, Karan Soni as Dopinder, Brianna Hildebrand as Negasonic Teenage Warhead, Shioli Kutsuna as Yukio, Stefan Kapičić as the voice of Colossus, and Rob Delaney as Peter. Deadpool & Wolverine will also star Emma Corrin as the villain and Matthew Macfadyen as a TVA agent. The film is also expected to feature cameos from characters throughout the history of 20th Century Fox’s Marvel movies, with a few already being revealed in the trailer, including Aaron Stanford as Pyro.

Do you think it’s Blake Lively playing Lady Deadpool in Deadpool & Wolverine? Do the hips give her away? If it’s not Blake Lively, who could it be? Feel free to tell us what you think in the comments section below.

About the Author

Born and raised in New York, then immigrated to Canada, Steve Seigh has been a JoBlo.com editor, columnist, and critic since 2012. He started with Ink & Pixel, a column celebrating the magic and evolution of animation, before launching the companion YouTube series Animation Movies Revisited. He’s also the host of the Talking Comics Podcast, a personality-driven audio show focusing on comic books, film, music, and more. You’ll rarely catch him without headphones on his head and pancakes on his breath.

Jan de Bont’s Twister is a modern disaster movie classic but does the sequel, Twisters, live up to it?

PLOT: A former storm chaser (Daisy Edgar-Jones) recovering from a tragedy is convinced by a former colleague to help him chase a series of massive twisters rocking central Oklahoma. 

REVIEW: Jump back to the summer of 1996. I was fourteen years old and going to see Twister at the old Famous Eight here in good old Montreal, an old suburban movie theatre that was showing a movie in THX for the first time ever. I’ll never forget sitting down with a friend to watch Jan de Bont’s classic and being rocked to the core by the amazing VFX and sound – and it remains a favourite of mine. It had a rock solid cast of characters, all of whom were memorable, plus two perfect regular Joe heroes in Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton, with the movie, believe it or not, actually a disaster movie quasi remake of the classic screwball comedy His Girl Friday, with the genders reversed. It shouldn’t have worked as well as it did, but boy, oh boy, I loved watching it. The movie was a runaway smash hit, grossing just shy of $500 million worldwide (in 1996 dollars). It was so popular that it actually kicked off a mini-disaster movie revival, with movies like Dante’s Peak, Volcano, Deep Impact and Armageddon all following in its wake.

Now, twenty-eight years later, Twister is finally getting a quasi-sequel, Twisters, which, to its credit, has some terrific talent involved. That includes two of the most promising rising stars of the moment, Glen Powell and Daisy Edgar-Jones, and a unique choice for a director in Minari’s Lee Isaac Chung. But can it live up to the original? 

Yes and no.

While Twisters lacks the human touch and characterizations that made the original such an endurable classic, the film does benefit from a few things. For one, this isn’t really a legacy sequel. Those have been hit and miss in the past, and Twisters only has modest connections to the original film. You could walk into this having never heard of the first one and not feel like you were missing anything. While that approach may strike some as disrespectful to the legacy of the original, Lee Isaac Chung, working from a screenplay by Mark L. Smith (and based on a story by Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski), is trying to do his own thing, and it works relatively well. 

The reason, of course, is the cast, with Daisy Edgar-Jones and Glen Powell two terrific leads to hang this on. Edgar-Jones (who I loved in a cool little horror flick called Fresh) plays Kate, a former storm chaser recovering from a professional tragedy that cost the lives of her old crew, with only Anthony Ramos’s Javi left over. He approaches her, years later, to help him deploy a revolutionary new tracking system, which puts her immediately at odds with Powell’s Tyler Owens. Unlike Javi’s science-minded crew, Owens is a YouTube personality who, along with his colourful gang, seems like a total cowboy, much to Kate’s initial chagrin. 

To the movie’s credit, there’s a more formulaic version of it that could have made Powell’s Tyler an antagonist, but instead, they make him a hero. While brash, Tyler’s got a heart of gold. By contrast, Ramos’s Ravi might initially be the shadier one, with him hooked up with a stuck-up storm chaser played by future Superman David Corenswet, who’s clearly up to no good.

The original film pushed the envelope as far as VFX went, and Chung tries many times to top it, using multiple twisters and even a tornado on fire. Alas, the film lacks any of the truly memorable imagery the first film sported, such as that famous flying cow shot or the drive-in theatre screen (playing The Shining) coming apart in a tornado. Bigger isn’t always better.

Yet, Chung does have time to show off some of the grace notes that made Minari such a treat. He truly appreciates down-home Americana, the film stops for a memorable rodeo segment, and the small towns devastated by the titular Twisters have a ring of truth about them.

However, the film also suffers from one thing that’s been bugging me about modern films: the complete avoidance of any physical affection between the leads. The movie largely centers around the deepening relationship between Tyler and Kate. Still, despite the chemistry between the two of them, there’s little to no opportunity for sparks to fly on screen. It’s as if someone along the way decided any hint of romance is reductive, which left a sour taste in my mouth because the movie is begging for it.

Despite this, Twisters still works as a good piece of summer entertainment. The pace is lively, and besides Jones, Powell and Ramos, some of the supporting cast members are fun, such as Sasha Lane as one of Tyler’s cronies and Downton Abbey’s Harry Hadden-Paton as an easily frightened (but not cowardly) journalist following Tyler’s crew. But, at the end of the day, the movie is made by the legit movie star appeal of Powell, who seems to be making a bid to be the next Tom Cruise, with him playing the same kind of brash, heroic, upbeat heroes his former Top Gun: Maverick co-star rose to fame as. Twisters isn’t the instant classic the original was, but it’s a good time at the movies. 

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