Twister (1996)

User Rating:

6.0/10   

Director:

Jan de Bont

Writers (WGA):

Michael Crichton (written by) &
Anne-Marie Martin (written by)

Release Date:

10 May 1996 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Drama | Thriller

Tagline:

The Dark Side of Nature.

Plot:

A couple on the point of divorce keep meeting each other because both are researchers who chase tornadoes.

Plot Keywords:

Divorce | Tornado | Weatherman | Obsession | Storm Chasing

Awards:

Nominated for 2 Oscars. Another 6 wins & 9 nominations

Cast

Helen Hunt	...	Dr. Jo Harding
Bill Paxton	...	Bill Harding
Cary Elwes	...	Dr. Jonas Miller
Jami Gertz	...	Dr. Melissa Reeves
Philip Seymour Hoffman	...	Dustin Davis
Lois Smith	...	Meg Greene
Alan Ruck	...	Robert 'Rabbit' Nurick
Sean Whalen	...	Allan Sanders
Scott Thomson	...	Jason 'Preacher' Rowe
Todd Field	...	Tim 'Beltzer' Lewis
Joey Slotnick	...	Joey
Wendle Josepher	...	Haynes
Jeremy Davies	...	Laurence
Zach Grenier	...	Eddie
Gregory Sporleder	...	Willie

Also Known As:

Catch the Wind (USA) (original script title)
Wind Devils (USA) (working title)

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for intense depiction of very bad weather.

Runtime:

113 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS

Certification:

UK:PG | South Korea:12 | Argentina:13 | Australia:PG | Canada:14 (Nova Scotia) | Canada:G (Quebec) | Canada:PG (Manitoba/Ontario) | Chile:14 | Finland:K-12 | France:U | Germany:12 (w) | Ireland:12 | Portugal:M/12 | Singapore:PG | Spain:T | Sweden:11 | USA:PG-13

Filming Locations:

Ames, Iowa, USA

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivia:

At the end of the movie Bill remarks that the tornado didn't take the house. In fact, it was originally supposed to. The Hardin County (Iowa) Historical Society and many citizens objected to the house being blown up so it was spared. The area is now a tourist attraction as the rubble from the barn and fences is still there exactly as it was in the movie.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: While Bill and Jo are running (driving) from the first bad tornado, a house falls into the road in front of them, and one of them yells, "We're goin' in!" As they crash through the walls of the house in the truck, in one room there is a chair, above the truck in frame, standing as it should be, in place, even though the house has been blown through the sky and the floor is at a steep angle. The chair doesn't even move when the truck crashes through the room.

Quotes:

Dusty: "The Suck Zone". It's the point basically when the twister... sucks you up. That's not the technical term for it, obviously.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "American Dad!: Francine's Flashback (#1.4)" (2005)

Soundtrack:

Humans Being

The darker side of writing a script for a disaster movie

Twister, one of the most successful movies of the 90's, mainly due to it's special effects and a lot of people's want for a natural disaster movie that is fun to watch, this was an extremely popular movie. I was only 11 when the movie was released and I was absolutely in love with it, in fact right after the movie was done, I wanted to become a storm chaser. That's how much I loved this movie; I grew up and forgot about the movie and decided on a new career. But I saw the DVD on sale and thought about how much I enjoyed the movie when I was younger, I'm sure it would be just as much fun to see it again. I have to say this wasn't as awesome as I remembered, in the theater it was like "Oh, my God! Look at that flying cow! A house just flew across the road! That is so cool!", now on my TV screen I was like "Oh, wow, look at that cow. How the heck does a house fly across the road? Why isn't this as cool as I remembered it?" Not to mention that the story wasn't as good as I remembered, granted I know that they had to fit in some kind of story with the whole plot of the twisters, but a lot of this movie is just plain unrealistic.

In June 1969 on an Oklahoma farm a tornado warning is issued, the family seeks shelter in a storm cellar as an F5 tornado strikes. However, the storm is so strong that the locks on the cellar door fail and the father is caught up in the storm and killed as his daughter struggles to catch a glimpse of the powerful storm. Years later, Dr. Jo Harding, the father's daughter, is reunited with her estranged husband; Bill Harding. Bill is a former weather researcher and storm chaser who has taken a job as a weather reporter. He is planning to marry his new girlfriend, Dr. Melissa Reeves, and arrives at Jo's research lab seeking Jo's signature for the final divorce papers. Bill discovers that Jo has built a tornado research device called DOROTHY based upon his own design; the device is designed to release hundreds of sensors into the center of a tornado to study its structure. The team later meets up with Dr. Jonas Miller, a smug and unscrupulous fellow meteorologist and storm chaser. When Bill discovers that Jonas has "invented" a device almost identical to DOROTHY; he vows to help Jo deploy DOROTHY before Miller can claim credit for the idea. Bill and Melissa join Jo and her eccentric team of storm chasers. Tensions rise between Jo and Bill when they have several close calls with dangerous tornadoes as they try unsuccessfully to deploy the new device.

So how does Twister hold up over these years? Not so well, the effects are still amazing, but that's about it. I do have to admit, even though it's a bad movie, I still enjoy it like crazy. I think because if you let go of how unrealistic it is, you can just have fun with that want of destruction and chaos. Granted I know this movie is a bit stupid: our two leads, Bill and Jo, survive the impossible facing an F5 twister, the twisters always disappear as our "hero's" are in danger, Bill's fiancé puts up with quit a bit before realizing that he is a jerk for putting her through all the danger with him, Jo, a scientist, thinks that tornado's are serial killers, and not to mention that this was a record breaking day with numerous twisters. But still as bad as the acting, as bad as the story, as stupid as some of these situations may be, it's still a fun movie to watch and I think I wanna be fair with the rating just because it is mindless entertainment. It's a classic 90's disaster movie and besides, it has flying cows, what other film will give you that kind of situation? But it's all good I think they were taking the cows to McDonald's anyways.

7/10