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Besides having the notable distinction of being the first movie ever released on the
DVD format, Twister was also the second-highest grossing film of 1996, earning five-hundred-million
dollars worldwide. It stars Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt as an estranged couple who chase
tornadoes for a living. We follow these storm-chasers during a wild 24-hour-period where they amazingly
find themselves cowering from the destructive force of four separate tornadoes. Because
of this, "Twister" is unfortunately missing any real sense of danger or consequence - as
the characters miraculously survive every stormy encounter completely unscathed. Most
of the film revolves around Bill and Helen's quest to deploy a large piece of scientific
equipment in the path of a tornado, in hopes of studying it's traits from the inside. Along
them for this foolhardy quest is a rag-tag team of quirky scientists just as eager to
risk their life for some computer data on their clunky 90's laptops. Philip Seymour
Hoffman, Alan Ruck, Cary Elwes, and Jeremy Davies round-out the massive supporting cast,
but none of them are provided any amount of substantial dialog, instead falling into tired
stereotypes and exaggerated caricatures of real people. In fact, I'm not even certain
half of the storm-chasers in this film receive names - many are just disposable faces in
the background. Sub-plots concerning Bill's failing relationship, Helen's traumatic childhood
lost of her father to a tornadoes, and a rivalry between competing storm-chasing teams provide
a bit of context to the special-effects-heavy thrill ride, but fail to contribute anything
of substance to the film. "Twister" was nominated for two Academy Awards: best visual effects,
and best sound - and quite frankly, those are the only real reasons to watch a popcorn
film like this. The impressive shot of a cow flying through the air remains an iconic image
to this day - and to hear this movie in surround sound is like experiencing an actual tornado.
But the plot, and circumstances of our characters' many narrow escapes are completely preposterous,
if incredibly entertaining. Like most of Jan de Bont's movies - the script follows a very
cookie-cutter outline, and is mostly unmotivated - only the destructive tornados keep the acting
flowing from scene to scene. Luckily though, "Twister" excels so much in the thrills department,
it almost entirely makes up for the lack of development in other areas. 15-years old,
this film not only still holds up, it's also a real nail-bitter - an absolute classic in
the "disaster" sub-genre of movies, and easily the greatest movie that's ever been made about
tornados. If you're looking for a simple movie that showcases the very real power of mother-nature,
you won't be disappointed. "Twister", "Intensely thrilling, but emotionally empty". Well, that's
what I thought about the movie, now let's see what you had to say in the YouTube comments.
In comes the rate-o-matic to show us how we scored "Twister", and double SEVEN. I have
particularly found memories of this film, I remember seeing it in theaters when I was
just 10 years old, unfortunately though, it isn't quite as awesome as I remember it being
- I did think it was "Cool" though. You agreed with me, citing the impressive visual effects
as one of the big reasons you enjoyed the movie.