Twister takes the heart and soul of a rickety B-movie and builds the body of a big, lavish blockbuster around it. Think about it: You’ve got Jan de Bont (Speed) directing, Steven Spielberg (Gremlins) producing, and a solid cast of name actors. (Any scene with Helen Hunt and Philip Seymour Hoffman features two Oscar winners.) At the same time, this movie brims with dippy dialogue, predictable story beats, and two flying cows. (Or, it may’ve been the same cow. We haven’t confirmed.) Twister might be dumber than a box of sheetrock screws, but it somehow endures as popcorn entertainment.
The story (by Michael Crichton and his wife, Anne-Marie Miller, more creative firepower) is thinner than cheesecloth. Bill (Bill Paxton) and Jo (Helen Hunt) are an estranged couple who onced chased tornadoes together. Unfortunately, her fanatical pursuit of the twisters proved too much, even for him. Bill leaves Jo and the ‘naders behind, taking a job as a weatherman instead. As the film opens, he tracks Jo to a storm site and presents her with divorce papers and a brand new fiancée (Jamie Gertz).
Of course, Jo throws a curve ball of her own. Dorothy, the contraption Bill and Jo once built to study tornadoes, is now operational. (It looks like a fancy moonshine still, but what do I know?) The whole concept behind this thing seems positively nutty: Basically, they’ll hoist this thing in the back of Dodge Ram, drive right up to a churning tornado, and leap out. If all goes to plan, the twister will suck up the truck and the still, and valuable data will be collected. (Dorothy, it must be noted, is filled with tiny contraptions that look like aluminum shuttlecocks. In the vortex, they fly like little metal mosquitos.)
And really, that’s all the plot there is. To paraphrase the late, great Roger Ebert, that story is just a clothesline from which to hang things. That means we get lots of CGI twisters, lots of houses and barns shredded into shrapnel, and lots of Hunt and Paxton screaming unintelligible dialogue. Thankfully, de Bont was also smart enough to pack his disaster epic with memorable supporting characters. Hoffman correctly figures his off-kilter storm chaser as the comic relief, and goes deliciously over the top. He wears britches that are about three sizes to big, and says a multitude of creepy things. (“Welcome to the Suck Zone.”)
Even better, Hoffman is just the beginning. Cary Elwes pops up as the dashing blonde villain. He’s so dastardly and one-dimensional, I’m surprised the filmmakers didn’t give him a little mustache to twiddle. To his credit, Elwes manages a straight face as he delivers some of the most howlingly clunky dialogue in the whole wide universe: “The days of sniffin’ the dirt are over!” Almost all of his scenes are good for a strong chuckle or two.
At the dramatic center, Paxton and Hunt remain reliably grounded and likable. Nothing about this movie requires any depth or humanity, but these two manage to supply it anyway. They also have strong comedic chops, thus endowing Bill and Jo with funny little moments of snarky badinage. If this movie has any emotional impact, it owes almost all of it to the two leads.
Of course, I’ll wager than few people tune into Twister for its dramatic intrigue. Instead, audiences packed in to watch the Oklahoma countryside get waylaid by an increasingly powerful spate of digitized tornadoes. And for 1996, the results are stunning. Remember, CGI was still embryonic, so these special effects still had that new car smell. Sure, they’re quaint now, but the sound and fury of Twister also serve as a time capsule for what was impressive then.
Indeed, just about everything about this movie offers the ache of nostalgia. Paxton and Hoffman have passed on, each long before their time. Twister also offers a fascinating glimpse into the 90s brief foray into disaster epics: The two top movies of ’96–this and Independence Day–both delivered widespread devastation. In the two years after, Hollywood offered two asteroid movies and two volcano movies. All of them utilize the same template as Twister–B-movie storytelling, well-known actors, and enormous budgets. At the same time, few manage the silly, freewheeling fun found in this one.
113 min. PG-13. Max.
