Twister-1996

Director Jan de Bont

Starring Bill Pullman, Helen Hunt

Scott’s Review #763

Reviewed May 25, 2018

Grade: B+

Twister (1996) is a film with amazing, groundbreaking special effects that blew people away (pun intended!) when it was released to the masses over twenty years ago.

Moviegoers flocked to theaters everywhere to enjoy the escapist summer feel-good hit starring popular stars of the time.

The film spawned amusement park rides and lots of other fun things during its run.

The visuals are what truly deserve to be enjoyed here, not the generic, tried-and-true subplots of romance, childhood trauma, and corporate greed that are mixed in.

The film does not hold up well in the present day, as its dazzling effects now look rather dated when compared with modern blockbusters. This results in Twister being reduced to “one of those 1990’s films”.

Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt star as American storm chasers, Bill and Jo, obsessed with their craft of tracking tornadoes throughout the Midwestern United States.

Adding drama to the plot is that Bill and Jo are an estranged married couple in the midst of a divorce.

Bill brings his new fiancée, Melissa (Jami Gertz), along as numerous meteorologists converge to track storms using newly invented devices.

Predictably, a series of vicious storms commences while Bill, Jo, and Melissa play out a love triangle.

Twister gets off to a fantastic start when a wicked storm kills the five-year-old Jo’s father, prompting her to pursue her chosen career. Jo has never gotten over her father’s death, becoming fascinated by deadly storms.

The effects of this initial storm are very well done as Jo’s father’s death scene is riveting- the poor man being sucked into the deadly cyclone is memorable.

Regardless, this scene sets the tone for the ample effects to follow- most notably the terrifying sound of the swirling storm as farm tools and animals fly around onscreen.

After the initial introduction, the rest of the film mainly follows the group as they drive around and encounter storms, with Bill and Jo taking center stage.

As a child who spent many summers in the Midwest, sans tornadoes, thankfully, I felt a sense of nostalgia watching the film.

It is assumed that Twister was filmed on location (with studio help), but the authenticity is apparent. From the vastness of the plains to the dusty roads, cornfields, and the small-town U.S.A.

I enjoyed the down-home, slice-of-life feel.

The action and effects are lightning-quick and quite realistic. As mentioned, the sound effects are as strong as the visual effects, and I never doubted for a second that the twisters had a realistic quality.

This successfully merges into the summer blockbuster that Twister’s producers undoubtedly were going for. Making a ton of money, the result was successful and inspired by Hollywood.

Despite the superlative special effects, though, this is the only reason to watch Twister, and seeing the film once is enough excitement.

The writers (Michael Crichton and Anne-Marie Martin) attempt to incorporate a romance into the story, and this does nobody any good.

This negative aspect is even more apparent since the chemistry between Paxton and Hunt is non-existent, and Gertz’s Melissa is meant to be the odd woman out all along.

A large amount of suspension of disbelief is necessary to “buy” various scenes. Ludicrous are countless scenes where characters either outrun the monstrous twisters or, somehow, the storms encircle them but miraculously never touch them.

When Jo, Bill, and Melissa’s truck is captured inside the funnel cloud, the vehicle and its passengers somehow remain unharmed.  Tornadoes do not simply come out of nowhere to attack without any indication on the radar.

But alas, this is a disaster film, and liberties must be taken.

The famous “cow scene”, notoriously used twice in the film, seemed groundbreaking and cutting-edge in 1996, but in 2018 now seems hokey and unnecessary.

Times sure do change in cinema, especially with technical effects and CGI growing each year.

Admittedly, the film does contain a good, all-American rockin’ summer tune by Van Halen named “Humans Being”, which always makes me think of summertime when I hear it.

The entire Twister soundtrack was an enormous success with radio airplay, which led to further successes for the film.

Perhaps now watched as a blast from the past or a revisit to some sort of nostalgic time for folks, Twister (1996) is a great example of a once-popular popcorn movie falling into semi-obscurity.

Given another twenty years, the film will undoubtedly fall apart—a nice film for its time, but not much more.

Oscar Nominations: Best Sound, Best Visual Effects