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Twister<\/strong> (1996)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Warner Bros.\/Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 113 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (intense depiction of very bad weather, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Jan de Bont\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Michael Crichton and Anne-Marie Martin\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Mark Mancina\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Jack N. Green\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: May 10, 1996 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Helen Hunt, Bill Paxton, Cary Elwes, Jami Gertz, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Lois Smith, Alan Ruck, Sean Whalen, Scott Thomson, Todd Field, Joey Slotnick, Wendle Josepher, Jeremy Davies, Zach Grenier, Gregory Sporleder, Patrick Fischler, Nicholas Sadler, Ben Weber, Anthony Rapp, Eric LaRay Harvey, Abraham Benrubi, Jake Busey, Richard Lineback, Rusty Schwimmer, Alexa Vega.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $241.7M (US)\/$494.5M (World)<\/p>\n Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n \u00a0Disaster movies made something of a comeback in 1996 with star-studded movies like Independence Day and Daylight. I\u2019m not sure if I\u2019d call Twister<\/strong> a disaster movie, but it comes darn close. It has tornadoes, a lot of them. They do a lot of damage to property, vehicles and livestock. In between storms, some personal drama plays out, none of it as interesting as the twisters sweeping across Oklahoma weaving a path of destruction in their wake. It sure sounds like a disaster movie though, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n \u00a0In his sophomore directorial endeavor, Jan de Bont (Speed) follows a group of storm chasers looking to test a new device that, if successful, could serve as an earlier early warning system for tornadoes. It\u2019s called Dorothy (as in The Wizard of Oz) and it\u2019s a receptacle containing small weather sensors. It\u2019ll revolutionize tornado research. In order for it to work, it must be deployed dangerously close to a twister.<\/p>\n \u00a0The ragtag team is led by Jo (Hunt, As Good as It Gets), a meteorologist with a grudge against tornadoes. As a little girl, she saw her father killed by an F5 twister (that\u2019s the biggest kind!). For her, it\u2019s personal. She\u2019s joined on her mission by soon-to-be ex-husband Bill (Paxton, Aliens) and his fiancee Melissa (Gertz, The Lost Boys), a sex therapist and colossal pain in the ass. He just wants Jo to sign the divorce papers so he can start his new life as a TV weatherman. She\u2019s too preoccupied with her work to pay him much mind. Predictably, he\u2019s drawn back into his old life as a chaser with the arrival of the first of several storms. Just as predictable, he and Jo discover they might still have feelings for each other.<\/p>\n \u00a0Jo\u2019s team faces competition from Jonas (Elwes, Robin Hood: Men in Tights), a former team member-turned-rival. Thanks to corporate funding, he stole Bill\u2019s idea (i.e. Dorothy) and made his own device, the Dot3. He plans to be the first to deploy it. It\u2019s a race to see who get it in the air first.<\/p>\n \u00a0As you can see, Twister<\/strong> has the thinnest of plots. It\u2019s basically about a group of gung ho weather cowboys chasing tornadoes and escaping death time and time again. I\u2019d be surprised if the script, written by author Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park) and former actress Anne-Marie Martin (one of the victims in the 1980 slasher Prom Night), even comes close to the recommended minimum length of 90 pages. Twister<\/strong> is less about story than it is pure spectacle. On that level, it\u2019s really quite impressive. De Bont uses a combination of practical and visual effects to create realistic storm scenes. His team worked with meteorologists and storm experts to make Twister<\/strong> look and feel authentic. They crushed it!<\/p>\n \u00a0The acting, on the other hand, is pretty bad. Gertz gets top dishonors as Melissa who does little more than get in everybody\u2019s way. She\u2019s saddled with loads of bad dialogue. After a particularly harrowing experience, she says to Bill, \u201cWhen you used to tell me that you chase tornadoes, deep down I always just thought it was a metaphor.\u201d Spoken like a true psych professional. My favorite though is when she\u2019s talking to a patient on the phone and has to excuse herself. She tells the caller, \u201cI gotta go. We got cows.\u201d Those would be the bovine caught in the twister in front of the vehicle she\u2019s in. If I\u2019m being honest, her character is pretty annoying.<\/p>\n \u00a0There are some fun supporting characters along for the ride. My personal favorite is Dusty, a good-natured chaser played by the late Philip Seymour Hoffman (Boogie Nights). He\u2019s such a likable goof. The supporting cast also includes Alan Ruck (Ferris Bueller\u2019s Day Off), Sean Whalen (The People Under the Stairs), Todd Field (Eyes Wide Shut), Jeremy Davies (Spanking the Monkey) and Lois Smith (Falling Down) as Jo\u2019s Aunt Meg (can I call her Auntie M?). You should see the meal she feeds the hungry team.<\/p>\n \u00a0In the end, Twister<\/strong> is a decent summer movie, fun as it is dumb. It has amazing FX and plenty of tornado action. It stumbles around in the dark when it comes to the personal drama. It\u2019s handled clumsily. But who cares? None of that even matters. It\u2019s just filler for the down time between twisters. Twister<\/strong> delivers where and when it matters. That\u2019s the most important thing.<\/p>\n Twister (1996)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Warner Bros.\/Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 113 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (intense depiction of very bad weather, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Jan de Bont\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Michael Crichton and Anne-Marie Martin\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Mark Mancina\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Jack N. Green\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: May 10, 1996 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Helen Hunt, Bill Paxton, Cary Elwes, Jami Gertz, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Lois Smith, Alan Ruck, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":553,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-action-adventure"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Twister-PIC.jpg?fit=1600%2C900&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=551"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":556,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551\/revisions\/556"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Twister-POSTER.jpg?resize=620%2C920&ssl=1\")
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