The most recent action film I watched was Twisters (2024), an action and adventure film directed by Lee Isaac Chung and a standalone sequel to Twister (1996). The film follows our protagonist, Kate, played by Daisy Edgar-Jones, a meteorology student who a retired storm chaser in Oklahoma alongside a diverse team led by Tyler (Glen Powell). The image I captured from the film shows a critical moment in which Kate was sitting inside Tyler’s truck beside a violent EF5 tornado, desperately attempting to navigate the unfamiliar truck’s controls to launch a mixture of chemicals designed to induce rain and disrupt the storm’s intensity. Her emotional urgency is fueled by her mother’s insight waiting for her to “save the day,” reinforcing gendered norms of emotional responsibility, care, and sacrifice often assigned to white female heroes in contemporary action cinema. As Lesinski (2024) notes, many contemporary action films center on white female heroes whose physical capacity is emphasized through visual spectacle, but who are also emotionally burdened with saving others. In Twisters (2024), Kate’s storm-stopping mission is driven not only by science but by this emotional expectation, depicting her as both an action figure and caretaker.
The mise-en-scène of the scene is rich with ecological symbolism: a dark, ominous sky, airborne debris, and the massive funnel cloud visually communicate the uncontrollable force of nature. The scene was shot in third person, and in this particular screen grab, the camera panned out to show the viewers how massive and destructive the tornado is. Additionally, The camera isn’t just focused on one thing, as it wants the viewers to feel the disaster that the main character, Kate Carter, is about to face. The tornado, classified as an EF5, reflects real-world supercell tornadoes capable of winds up to 322 km/h (Sills & Elliot, 2023), strong enough to level houses and launch vehicles over 100 meters (ICC, 2020). From 1:45:00 to 1:46:00 in the movie, the tornado is shown devouring everything in its path—an immersive effect achieved through rapid action cuts, close-ups, and cutaways; The cutaways were used to show what was happening to Kate’s friends and build urgency to Kate’s efforts to stop the tornado before it reaches her friends and the people they’re protecting. These editing choices keep the audience on edge: we see debris striking Kate’s car, the explosion of a nearby oil refinery, and people being violently swept into the air. The camera shakes with the storm’s force, reflecting the chaos through sudden, jarring movements. Cutaways to Kate’s teammates build suspense and emphasize the stakes, while close-ups on Kate’s face highlight her internal panic and determination. The color grading is dark and muted, mirroring the devastation unfolding on-screen.
Although Kate’s character represents a change from passive to active female heroes, there is no overt representation of disabilities in the story and it is centred on able-bodied people. Although the group is racially diverse (Anthony Ramos’s character Javi), this sequence physically isolates Kate as the only hero, implicitly reinforcing a well-known Hollywood cliché of white female salvation. Caucasian actor leads continue to dominate pivotal moments of resolution and heroism, despite the increased visibility of racial diversity in modern action movies, exposing enduring representational inequities in Hollywood narrative. As Smyth (2020) argues, even as Hollywood increases surface-level diversity, white actors continue to occupy the most emotionally significant and narratively central roles, maintaining long-standing hierarchies of representation. The action scene itself is incredibly ecological; nature is not merely a background but also a violent character, and the tornado’s devastating trajectory symbolizes humanity’s weakness and the nature’s unpredictability. The setting serves as both an enemy and a stage for personal development as the movie combines intense emotion.
Disaster films like Twisters (2024) show how far special effects have come in portraying nature’s chaos. As stated in The Physics of Special Effects in Modern Films, modern VFX combine real-world physics with CGI to simulate phenomena like tornadoes and explosions with striking realism (View of The Physics of Special Effects in Modern Films, n.d.).
Movies like Twisters have a tendency to skew viewers’ perceptions of actual disaster situations by giving them a false impression of power or invincibility. Tyler’s vehicle, for example, employs drills to anchor into the ground (to stay put) during a tornado in a few scenes—which is not entirely possible, even though it looks impressive on screen. Such scenes could minimize the actual risks and complexity of disaster response by giving viewers the impression that they could survive severe storms with the correct equipment or bravery (Satpathi & Smith, n.d.).
Furthermore, it is no surprise that Twisters was a success, with an impressive $81 million domestic debut and nearly $372 million globally. Almost 72% of the movie’s total revenue came from domestic sales, indicating that it was more popular in the United States, probably as a result of its American setting and ties to the original Twister. The MPAA, which is PG-13 and distributed by Universal Pictures, does well proving that disaster action movies are still popular in mainstream Hollywood theatres.
References:
Azeema, Nusrat. “The Physics of Special Effects in Modern Films.” AL-ĪMĀN Research Journal 3, no. 01 (2025): 01-10.
Council, International Code. “How Damage Determines a Tornado’s Rating: From Fujita to Enhanced Fujita.” ICC, November 25, 2024. https://www.iccsafe.org/building-safety-journal/bsj-dives/how-damage-determines-a-tornados-rating-from-fujita-to-enhanced-fujita/#:~:text=tornado%20intensity%20classification.-,Dr.,ground%20or%20through%20aerial%20observations.
Jacqueline Smyth, The Importance of Diverse Representations in Cinema: Modern Films Challenging the Status Quo in Hollywood (BA thesis, Institute of Art Design & Technology, Dun Laoghaire, 2020), 4–7.
Lesinski, Shaylynn Lynch. Moving Bodies: The Affective Capacities of Contemporary Female Action Heroes. MA thesis, Bowling Green State University, 2024.
Satpathi, Sayantani, and Jamie N. Smith. “Understanding the Impact of Disaster Movies on the Social Construction of Risk Perception.”
Sills, David M.L., and Lesley Elliot. “Full Article: Assessment of Tornado Alerting Performance for Canada.” Assessment of Tornado Alerting Performance for Canada, September 21, 2023. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07055900.2023.2257163.
Jessica Lam
I largely agree with this essay’s argument. The essay introduces a tense action scene from Twisters (2024). The carefully chosen image significantly enhances the scene’s visual impact, which reflects the film’s mood and tone. The image was well described in a very detailed and concise way. The devices within the mise en scene are thoroughly explained to describe the scene. Notably, ecological symbolism and camera movements create a comprehensive understanding of the scene’s elements, including colour choices and camera panning techniques. Going into further depth on specific editing techniques would help tie in more course concepts. Identifying concepts like hyper realism and the use of handheld-shaky camera shots and their impact on viewers’ interpretation of the film would have strengthened the essay’s argument. Additionally, the topic of gender representation was very insightful. It discusses the trope of white female saviours who are caretakers and emotionally burdened. This discussion seamlessly integrated peer-reviewed scholarly articles to support its claims. Another suggestion would be to analyse the scene’s implications in more depth. What does the depiction of tornadoes as conquerable battles suggest to viewers? How would this impact viewers’ perception of natural disasters? Overall, the essay effectively and insightfully critiqued the action scene in Twisters (2024), well supporting relevant scholarly articles.