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The first time Glen Powell's "tornado-wrangling" YouTube sensation Tyler Owens appears in Lee Isaac Chung's "Twisters" it's for a split second about 25 minutes in, and he's half-hidden behind his tricked-out truck's dusty windshield. But one thing - or, 28-32 things - remain(s) unmistakable: His teeth. Were this a cartoon, a twinkling light would bounce off his canines to emphasize their eggshell-white shine. These teeth belong to a shit-eating grin that is at once both swoon-worthy and threatening; it's as impossible not to fawn over it as it is not to fear it. It's a smirk that comes with its own gravitational pull, alluring and mysterious regardless of its straightforward beauty. Simply put: If the face is known as the money-maker, then his smile is indeed worth $1 million.

So it's only fitting that "Twisters"' energy shifts the moment Tyler and his storm-chasing crew roll into the frame, blaring Luke Combs' "Ain't No Love in Oklahoma" from their vehicle's external speakers as they literally toot their own horns. His arrival disrupts what had previously been an all-business gathering of "professional" storm chasers mapping out their tornado-hunting strategies based on Doppler radar readings and high-tech calculations. Tyler's clan of adrenaline junkies - "Hillbillies with a YouTube channel," as David Corenswet's sulky Scott calls them - go about things differently. Their uniforms aren't logoed polo shirts, but puffed-chest-friendly button-ups, cowboy hats, and belt buckles the size of footballs. They sell t-shirts that boast the words "Not my first Tornado" on the front next to Owens' caricatured face; they holler things like "Smile, man, science is fun, right?" from behind an accessory-laden iPhone that has been tailor-made for live-streaming. They don't run down a twister based on what a weather app tells them. In Tyler's words, if you feel it, you chase it.

Kate Carter (Daisy Edgar-Jones) is a different breed, too, though her approach to storm chasing isn't all that different from Tyler's modus operandi. She tends to follow a gut feeling, one that is based on science, sure, but has a "Rain Man" quality to it. She's the best at sensing what storms will break and what ones will last, but she got out of the game five years ago after one wrong call sent her team directly into an EF5 tornado - the worst a tornado can be - resulting in the death of two of her friends (Kiernan Shipka and Nik Dodani) and her boyfriend, Jeb (Daryl McCormack). In the aftermath of that trauma, Kate left town and took a cushy desk job at the National Weather Service's office in New York, analyzing weather patterns rather than driving straight into the worst of them. When the only other surviving member of her old team, Javi (Anthony Ramos), turns up and offers her a chance at redemption - an opportunity to render 3D scans of tornadoes with military technology, the kind that has the ability to warn the communities settled in Oklahoma's famous "Tornado Alley" of what weather is heading their way - she hesitantly accepts, even as she clocks some shady motivations within his operation. (Thank goodness, too, otherwise we wouldn't have much of a movie.)

It's a basic set-up that fits the re-quel formula to a tee. "Twisters," of course, is a spiritual sequel to Jan de Bont's 1996 mega-hit, "Twister," though the connections between the two films seem to be few, far between, and conceptual if nothing else. Both films prominently (and obviously) feature twisters, as well as two rival teams hunting them down; Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt's crew faced off with Cary Elwes' in ‘96, while Edgar-Jones and Ramos battle Powell and co. this time around. But the lines blur a bit more in Chung's film, as the burbling romantic subplot that drove "Twister" is somewhat reimagined in "Twisters" to bring these competing squadrons together, with the two hottest cast members - Edgar-Jones and Powell, naturally - falling for one another despite their allegiances to different teams.

While it's unfortunate that said love-interest storyline point exists at all, we can be thankful that Chung doesn't sacrifice the constant presence of "Twisters'" titular sky-high natural wind tunnels in favor of sexual tension. Frankly, the lust that exists between his characters and the swirling squalls they spend much of the film stalking is stronger and more convincing, giving this true-blue blockbuster the feel of a movie that is never too silly yet never self-serious - a difficult balance to strike when your main character's truck is rigged with rocket launchers above and super-powered drills below, the likes of which we're supposed to believe can secure the vehicle to the Oklahoma soil while parked inside a tornado (nevermind that we've already seen multiple trucks get sucked away in the wind, never to be driven again).

Then again, the act of suspending disbelief was specifically designed for movies like "Twisters," action spectacles that turn weather phenomena into a big bad that our heroes are meant to fight like the Avengers would Thanos. It helps that the chemistry between Edgar-Jones and Powell, despite the ever-charming latter's best efforts, is as flat as a grassy plain, a far cry from what Hollywood's newest chosen one conjured with Adria Arjona in Richard Linklater's "Hit Man," released just a few months ago. At least it's not much of a hang-up here, allowing us to direct our attention to the far more gripping aspects of the film's relatively thin narrative. That entertainment comes in multiple forms, from the storms themselves to the other members of Tyler's crew - particularly Boone, his wild, blasé cameraman (Brandon Perea, having the time of his life), though Dani (Katy O'Brian) and Lily (Sasha Lane) get a few laugh-lines of their own. Which ingredient suits your fancy is likely to be dependent on each individual viewer. But there's no denying that Chung and his visual effects team pulled out all the stops in making this stormy sequel, notably cow-less, look significantly more realistic than the original.

Whether or not that means better is hardly a worthwhile discussion as it would require the existence of connective tissue between the two, beyond disaster tropes and a will-they-won't-they storyline. Where "Twister" had Phillip Seymour-Hoffman, Alan Ruck, and a then-acting Todd Field at its disposal, "Twisters" rides into battle with a gathering of B and C-listers that do little to move the action along, mainly because their roles border on thankless in a film that is hell-bent on positioning its two love-struck protagonists in the center of the frame as much as possible. The biggest disappointment is Edgar-Jones, who fails to register emotions beyond tepid trauma or unconvincing glee. That Tyler is meant to be smitten when Kate blandly notes that one particular tornado is "gorgeous" is unconvincing, further proof that not every action-heavy spectacle requires a forced flirtation in order to add emotional weight. Perhaps some need no pathos at all.

None of this is to say that Chung falters at all in his direction, just that the fact that he isn't working with his own script is clearer than the cloudy skies in front of his lens. Instead, the director - whose semi-autobiographical masterpiece, 2020's "Minari," racked up six Oscar nominations - is saddled with a script penned by the same guy who wrote 2023's "The Boys in the Boat." Not even "Top Gun: Maverick"'s Joseph Kosinski, who gets a "story-by" credit here, can save "Twisters" from the occasional sappy detour, namely a late-stage trip down memory lane for Kate to visit her mom (Maura Tierney, doing the Lord's work in about six minutes of screentime), which helps her ultimately crack the code for why she and her fellow weather wackos have been unable to corral those damned cyclones.

The best way to look at "Twisters" is as a 90's-esque VFX-fest that is chock-full of film-fitted country songs and overdramatic line-readings about how we can overcome grief by taming the beasts within us, as well as the ones that are tearing the roofs off of homes across the Southwest. Had it adopted the tone of its best scenes - the opening catastrophe, Tyler's epic arrival, and its thrilling conclusion, to name a few - perhaps the film could've done that work for us; a kind gesture, given that no one comes to a movie like "Twisters" looking to perform mental gymnastics. But its shortcomings ultimately don't distract from what roped us in initially, leaving plenty to love and laugh at in what can easily be boiled down to a fun multiplex meal. It's fitting that one character, in an effort to save a few lives as the film's final superstorm beckons, tells his cohorts to "get everyone into the movie theater!", something "Twisters" will have no problem pulling off.