After twenty-four years, we finally have a sequel to Gladiator.  Why did it take so long to make a sequel to a film that was both a box office and critical success?  (The film won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor.)  There are several answers to that question, the first being that the writers were intent on bringing Russell Crowe’s Maximus back from the dead.  In case you may have forgotten, Maximus died shortly after killing the Emperor Commodus (Joakin Phoenix) in a fight to the death in the Colosseum.  Given that it’s extremely difficult to sell a sequel without the original’s main character, I can sympathize with why the writers stuck with the idea no matter how impossible it would have been to pull it off.  DreamWorks Pictures then went bankrupt in 2006, and Paramount Pictures put the project on hold indefinitely.  After eleven years, the story was reworked so that it no longer focused on Maximus, which was probably for the best because Crowe had since aged out of the part.  (See 2016’s The Nice Guys for evidence of how Crowe had “filled out” in the intervening years.)

Twisters fits in the same category as Sony’s recent Jumanji movies in that it’s not a remake or reboot of the original, but is clearly inspired by it.  Aside from the title, it has few things in common with the first movie.  Like Bill Paxton’s character in Twister, Kate (Daisy Edgar-Jones is a “human barometer”, able to read the weather without the help of instrumentation.  Then there is Dorthy, a suped-up trash can filled with little scientific devices intended to be sucked up into a tornado.  And it goes without saying that the movie has a number of tornadoes and related hijinks.  Otherwise, this entry in the “Twister Universe” is very much its own thing.  So why did the filmmakers decide to call it Twisters?  Studios have had a tough time lately convincing audiences to see original movies, so a touch of nostalgia goes a long way towards increasing awareness.  But another way, if the movie had been named Tornado Alley or The Tornado Wranglers I doubt it would have generated the same level of interest that it has.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (or Furiosa for short), is the story of how Furiosa became the fearless driving badass that was introduced in Mad Max: Fury Road nine years ago.  In that movie, she (as portrayed by Charlize Theron) was referred to as Imperator Furiosa and was presented to us in her fully-realized form without a hint of backstory.  With her shaven head, grease-painted face and steampunk mechanical arm, she fearlessly drove across the post-apocalyptic wasteland for her boss, Immortan Joe.  Furiosa’s cool head and savvy driving skills made her highly respected within Joe’s autocratic society, which is great when the rest of the world only wants to kill and eat you.  For reasons she kept to herself, she grew tired of working for The Man and decided to drive off the Australian reservation, as it were, liberating herself and Joe’s wives in the process.  After encountering some speed bumps, she rescues Max and together they overthrow Joe’s noxious patriarchy.  In the end, Furiosa became the Citadel’s new, benevolent leader, while Max fades away.