4DX is “Motion seats and special effects including wind, fog, mist/rain, smells and more, perfectly synchronized with on-screen action”. I have seen Before the pandemic, there were a lot of movies in the works that were just… silly fun. The seats rock, an occasional air bullet whizzes over your head, or some nasty water sprays onto you. After the pandemic, the Regal Times Square 4DX theater updated its technology with what I can only explain as… more violence. You won’t be shaken around, but roughly beaten. The four-seat sound stack is independently mounted so you can track it up and down, opening up even more effect possibilities.
The first movie I watched in this enhanced experience was Dune 2. It’s really great. Kind of like a dream, and loud at the same time.
Next I watched FURIOSA and wow, that was a wonderful movie. It doesn’t really require 4DX, but that part is fun. (Just writing this makes me wish I could see it in a theater again.)
When I got the invite to TWISTERS I knew it was going to be HAM and I wasn’t wrong.
But first, the movie: It stars Glen Powell as Tyler Owens, a YouTube storm chaser in a cowboy hat and skin-tight clothes. However, he is not the protagonist. That’s Kate Cooper, played by Daisy Edgar Jones, A woman who instinctively understands air patterns, a skill that will be put to the test.
The film opens with Kate, a young weather wizard, scouring the Oklahoma plains with a group of teenagers, trying to prove that a compound made from adult diapers could absorb moisture from tornadoes and calm them down, thereby saving lives and… property. Just like in a horror movie, these carefree youngsters are too carefree to survive the opening scene where a tornado goes wrong and several of Kate’s best friends are blown away… She friend Harvey (Anthony Ramos) is another survivor.
Fast forward five years… Kate is a sullen adult working at the weather department. Harvey re-enters the scene with his new team armed with incredible new technology called… 3D! They plan to track tornadoes from three different directions and use the data to…understand tornadoes.
Initially, Kate didn’t want to join Harvey in his new venture due to post-tornado stress disorder. But if she didn’t, we wouldn’t make the movie, so soon we’re back in Oklahoma, where our no-nonsense gang of scientists are soon obsessed with Taylor and his team’s country-music blasts, rockets Annoyed by launch antics.
Not much of a story after that… We learn that Javi may have some morally challenged backers, and it turns out that YouTube yahoos aren’t actually all loud assholes. We see the devastation the tornado wreaks on the community, and ultimately helping save people becomes Kate, Harvey, and Taylor’s top priority.
The director of “TWISTERS” is Lee Isaac Chung He has produced the beautiful Oscar-winning film MINARI. Chung grew up in rural Arkansas, and he shares the same compassion for TWISTERS’ farmland and life close to the dirt. He also deflected Minari’s sense of foreboding. In MINARI, you just knew something terrible was going to happen to this struggling family (could it be grandma?), whereas in TWISTERS, the anticipation of something terrible happening is baked into the concept.
But I can’t tell you much about the filmmaking of TWISTERS because every time there’s an action scene…everything falls apart. The seats in the theater suddenly started bucking like wild horses, rattling up and down and I thought my arms were going to be bruised. The experience of watching this movie is like going to an amusement park: you’re dragged into a struggle for survival during the film’s opening action scenes while you cling to your theater seat. Then there would be some quiet moments where Powell and Jones would get a little closer…and then everything would fall apart again. Every time a truck or car hits something… your seat shakes violently. It was so effective I think I cried several times. 
There are three long (I think?!?!? I lost track of time) scenes in TWISTERS that feel like being in a car accident in 4DX. The roar in the movie is loud and the seats pound against you mercilessly. When you get such a big shock, your body thinks you’ve actually been in an accident, and about half an hour into the movie, my adrenaline, cortisol, and Norepinephrine The level must be beyond imagination. With each performance, the audience becomes more engrossed, cheering, laughing, cheering, and then waiting with bated breath for the next disaster. We all survive car accidents! I went with a friend who introduced me to the 4DX experience; Dan Fogler, He looked like he was having the time of his life.
I know there are others”Surrounded by senses” process in the theater, but this has to be the most complex and daring of them all. Honestly, I feel like it makes the moviegoing experience feel fresh and special. When the movie ended, people were yelling, clapping and shouting— Physically integrated into the storyline, they are so immersed in the world of the film that it is difficult to separate the film from reality. The final action scene finds the survivors in the cinema, which is a brilliant move. Talk about self-insertion.
The cast is filled with actors who have performed in roles such as Katie O’Brien, Brandon Pereaand Tunde Adebimpe. Harvey’s team also includes a self-righteous asshole. “Oh my gosh, he looks just like a young Henry Cavill,” I thought, not knowing that David Collenswaite Until the end credits roll. I think Superman would wear a nice tight suit. Ramos has a thankless task as “an old friend with a passion for heroines,” but they just rest. 
Glen Powell, today’s tastemaker, is a legitimate movie star here – in the trailer, your seat vibrates whenever he speaks, in case you needed a hint. Although nudity is frowned upon by today’s prudish audiences, the scene in which Taylor was caught in a pouring rain wearing a tight white T-shirt drew cheers from the audience. Edgar Jones didn’t make much of an impression on me. She’s disheveled and looks panicked, but some of the dramatic moments feel a little tame. That said, I know she made a bubbly impression in Normal People, and I think she was probably cast because of her ability to express her character in an exciting way. Len Powell is attractive. In this, she succeeded, and so did the movie.
I don’t know if TWISTERS is a good movie, but it was such a painful two hour ride. Regular adult ticket at Regal Times Square. A 4DX screening of TWISTERS costs about $30, so it’s not cheap, but it’s only a few dollars more than a regular screening in New York. If it takes beating and spooking audiences like jumping on a cyclone in Coney Island to lure them back to the theater…I say go for it.
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