Twister Chad'z rating: ** (out of 4 = fair) 1996, PG-13, 117 minutes [1 hour, 57 minutes] [thriller] starring: Bill Paxton (Bill Harding), Helen Hunt (Jo Harding), Jami Gertz (Melissa), Cary Elwes (Dr. Jonas Miller), written by Micheal Crichton, Ann-Marie Martin, produced by Michael Crichton, Kathleen Kennedy, Ian Skye, directed by Jan De Bont.
If we told you once, we told you a thousand times - movies are not roller coaster rides! "Twister" has to be one of the prime examples of the typical, cliche, summer action movie with lots of stunts and special effects to keep an audience in awe every step of the way.
In the spirit of "Jurassic Park," Michael Crichton has produced another blockbuster extravaganza flick with so many special effects it's unreal. And that's where the problem to this film lies: it isn't believable. You don't have to be an experienced critic to realize how trite this film is.
We start out in the 1960s and witness a small farming family have their home destroyed and father killed by a tornado. We then cut to the present as Jo (Hunt), the little girl whose family was destroyed by the tornado, has grown up to become a professional "tornado hunter." She and her soon-to-be-ex-husband, Bill (Paxton), have invented a device that will allow scientists to study a tornado from within the funnel. One this particular expedition, Bill has brought along his fiancee Melissa (Gertz), and hopes he and Jo can finalize their divorce. Melissa is the typical, fragile, female character who has no idea what is going on. Even though little has happened by the time all these factors come into play, the film is already very formulated, you wonder if it could get any worse?
Apparently Bill and Jo have some competition, and just like all those old sci-fi movies, it's a mad scientist, only updated for the 90s. Cary Elwes co-stars as Dr. Jonas Miller, a scientist working for a commercial corporation who has invented the same device as the Hardings (how does anyone profit from tornados?). Of course there's an immediate definition of a rivalry between Miller and the Hardings. Now this is all nice and good, but it's just a petty excuse at characterization and storytelling. Who cares? We want to see the cool computer-generated special effects and stunts!
And so we get those effects and stunts, and as lame as the film is, it does deliver on its promise to impress us. The tornados here look real, and the whole point of making a film about people chasing them is to actually show them running away from them. And yes, the supposedly suspenseful scenes do kick in full gear, but it's hard to care when you don't know why these idiots are risking their lives in the name of "science."
Thrillers with scientific (read: "sci-fi") overtones like this are usually interesting to watch because we learn about the reality of the situation and thus it seems more believable, and even scary in a way. But we learn absolutely nothing about tornadoes here. There are some scenes of destruction, but they are isolated incidents. We really don't learn how much damage a tornado can cause. It's almost as if the tornado is an intelligent monster chasing our heroes (a la "Jaws"). I never thought weather had an agenda!
"Twister" has all the makings of a suspenseful action movie, but its cliches and cheesy storylines and sub-plots are just so distracting it's hard to care what happens - and isn't that really what makes for fun at the movies?
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