The Hollywood remake machine picks up and spits out Twister, the twist being that this time a woman (Daisy Edgar-Jones) gets to be the weather whisperer.

Not really disaster movies or action flicks, the Twister films are effectively just barometers for their respective cinematic eras; the original a ’90s celebration of obnoxious white guy heroics, this new one simply bland nostalgia for the former. Its would-be updates (such as acknowledging that the leading man is obnoxious) are purely superficial, and the film is more conservative than its 1996 predecessor.

It leans into the rodeo-loving, country music-blasting cornography of fictional small-town America, where climate change is never mentioned and the Hispanic character is still relegated to the role of morally ambiguous sidekick friend. Like Top Gun: Maverick refusing to identify the nation the US is fighting against, Twisters is desperate not to alienate any potential markets (either domestic or international) who might be major polluters and/or minor racists.

Instead of the previous Spielbergian score, the soundtrack is all country songs, apart from the sappy piano that plays whenever Kate is communing with nature. Kate herself is dressed as Helen Hunt’s absent Twister character, which means she is cosplaying as a character who was already cosplaying as Laura Dern in Jurassic Park. This is presumably meant to recall fondness for a beloved character, but the comparison only serves to make Kate look like a simpering idiot with a ’90s haircut.

The reboot also revives the grassroots vs. corporatist dynamic (“We don’t need fancy gadgets!”) in a way that irons out some of the problems in the original plot, apart from one glaring one which is that there still isn’t actually a plot. There is a romance of sorts, but with so little chemistry between Glen Powell and Edgar-Jones that you wonder if he’s only with her because he’s been told the best way to survive a tornado is by attaching yourself to the nearest inanimate object.

The result is essentially a Hallmark movie with the occasional tornado, or a Whirlwind Romance if you prefer. It has all the usual Hallmarks: the antagonistic love interest with a heart of gold, the rural competition element, even a secret property development subplot. This means the stakes are somehow even lower than in Twister, where the stakes were literally ‘will this couple get a divorce?’

Here the only question is ‘will these people get together?’ – and with flirtatious dialogue as hot as “Our moisture numbers are off,” you really have to hope not.