Weekend Watch: Twisters, Cobra Kai Season 6 Part 1

Tornado alley and karate combat

Image Credit: Universal Pictures

Welcome to the latest edition of Weekend Watch, where I recommend (or occasionally warn against) movies or TV shows I’ve been checking out. This week, Glen Powell and Daisy Edgar-Jones chase storms and the Karate Kid gang returns. Follow James on Twitter: @jamwhite and Threads/Instagram: @jammerwhite

Twisters represents a combo of two factors –– throwback nostalgia and the presence of rising stars. Which should, if the blend works, lure in some very different audiences. Those who remember Jan de Bont’s 1996 tornado-based action thriller Twister will enjoy the fact that this is a very much a spiritual sequel (or almost a spiritual redo), a big-scale movie in the Amblin style that offers all the spinning, windy chaos you might hope for. And for those who don’t have a connection to the original, there’s the presence of rising stars Daisy Edgar-Jones and particularly Glen Powell, whose charm and presence helps anchor the story.

This is no direct continuation for the 1996 example, save perhaps in theme (and one gadget’s name) –– Edgar-Jones stars as Kate Cooper, whose traumatic experience during a storm-chasing experiment a few years ago (in which a couple of friends died) has her preferring the relative safety of weather monitoring from a bank of screens in New York. But when old pal Javi (Anthony Ramos) shows up, dangling the promise of finally making Kate’s plan to track and even derail tornadoes a reality, she reluctantly heads back into the field. A huge series of fields, in fact, the wide-open farm country and stormy skies of Oklahoma.

There, she encounters Tyler Owens (Powell), a swaggering YouTube storm chaser with a million-dollar smile and his face on t-shirts. Kate initially finds him ridiculous, but soon learns he has a few more layers than the wild attitude and the cowboy hat might initially suggest.

Yes, there is very little that is subtle about Twisters, but director Lee Isaac Chung, who last made small-scale family drama Minari, doesn’t skimp on the character details either, the script credited to Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski (who flirted with making the movie himself) and The Revenant’s Mark L. Smith successfully combining the former’s sense of epic scope with the latter’s ear for dialogue.

And while there are the expected moments and a few cliches (plus a soundtrack that is heavy on the weather-focused country and other music), Twisters succeeds in delivering the stormy thrills while letting genuinely talented performers such as Edgar-Jones, Ramos and Powell bring the nuance to their characters.

Everything old might truly be new again, but if it’s as purely entertaining as Twisters, that’s no bad thing.

Twisters is out now in UK and US cinemas.

Image Credit: Netflix

If you’ve been reading this column for a while, you know I love me some Cobra Kai. The small-screen continuation of the Karate Kid film franchise created by Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg successfully updated the storyline to find a middle-aged Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) and Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) at very different levels in their lives.

Through the past five seasons, the former rivals re-ignited their karate combat through new students, but as Season 6 dawns, they are united, albeit not always seeing eye-to-eye. The new run of five episodes (the season is split into three parts –– details below) keeps what mostly works about the show, and teases what is to come as we journey through (sob!) this final season.

While it can seem at times as though team Cobra is trying to juggle too much –– you’ve got Johnny and Daniel, their respective families and allies, the various students and the lingering nemesis that is Johnny’s old mentor John Kreese –– there is still the winning blend of laughs and drama that keeps you engaged with the main characters in particular. Do the younger players’ storylines still creep into melodrama? Sure, but they’re still fun.

If there’s a big downside to this first batch, it’s the utterly silly turn the Kreese storyline takes. I won’t spoil it, but given how well the show has done by him in the past, this is a headscratcher. I must admit that also less than scintillating is a subplot about Daniel discovering that late mentor Mr. Miyagi harboured a criminal secret. I’m certain that the creators have something more than what it seems up their sleeves, but for now it falls squarely into a mystery I don’t think I needed.

It certainly feels like Cobra Kai is ready to wrap things up –– going out in big style with the promise of world karate tournament the Sekai Taikai (do not attempt to drink every time someone says it; you’ll end up with a trip to casualty) and more comedy/drama between the leads (Johnny attending an open house as he tries adulting is a funny sequence), and I have faith in the creative team to keep it going strong until the end.

All five episodes of Cobra Kai Season 6 Part 1 are on Netflix now. Part 2 follows on 15 November and Part 3 at some point in 2025. I’ve seen all five episodes of Part 1.