While there is clearly a commercial purpose to Twisters, Lee Isaac Chung’s in-name-only sequel to 1996’s Twister, I am less sure there is a creative one. The original film was a very successful blend of strong actors, high concept, simple plot, and then-innovative visual effects – all of which functioned to bypass the terrible dialogue in Michael Crichton and Anne-Marie Martin’s screenplay. While this new film film’s cast are largely okay with one or two standouts, the concept and plot feel a little more complicated, and the visual effects simply do not amaze any more. The level of dialogue sadly matches the original. This is popcorn filler: it leans on a known brand to help in marketing, it entertains without boasting anything to make it memorable, and its target market – most of it too young to have seen Twister – would honestly have more fun checking out that film over the sequel.

Meteorologist Kate Carter (Daisy Edgar-Jones) abandoned her PhD research after a field mishap killed three of her fellow students in a tornado. Lured back to Oklahoma during a record tornado season, she works with former partner Javi (Anthony Ramos) to test a new phased-array radar system to scan tornados as they form. Their work is interrupted by the constant stunts of Internet celebrity and self-described “tornado wrangler” Tyler Owens (Glen Powell).

Twisters is a weird sequel for Hollywood, in that it has no clear relation to the original film beyond subject matter. Furthermore it is difficult to reconcile its central mission – to create three-dimensional models of tornados – with the original film, which essentially solved that particular problem by its climax. One suspects it was originally developed as a more direct follow-up: Maura Tierney shows up halfway through in a role with Twister star Helen Hunt written all over it. If that is true, and if Hunt turned the role down, I honestly would not blame her. Twisters is largely a sub-standard remake, except where it works doubly hard to make the action bigger (albeit never better).

Glen Powell shows a lot of star power as a charismatic tornado cowboy, and is clear marked for bigger projects in the future. Edgar-Jones and Ramos play things by the numbers. Their characters are bland for sure, but ironically it was Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt in the original who provided a solid class in out-performing a moribund screenplay.

Twisters is watchable enough, and even broadly entertaining in its modest way. Sadly it will also remind the older viewer of a much better and much more enjoyable blockbuster. Where it tries to one-up its predecessor, it fails. Where it attempts to innovate and throw in some surprises, it also signposts them mercilessly. It all feels just slightly too far out of alignment to recommend: a little less exciting, a little more silly, less well-acted, less inventive, noisier, more forgettable. On its own merits it disappoints, and that gets worse if you were around in 1996.