Twister (1996)

The tornadoes in Twister certainly look realistic even though technology has improved special effects so much since the film’s original release in 1996. The movie follows a group of so-called storm chasers, led by Helen Hunt’s Dr. Jo Harding and Bill Paxton’s Bill Harding, as they try to get this gadget called Dorothy (which looks like a metal garbage can filled with silver balls) to get whisked away by a tornado. If they’re successful, the sensors inside Dorothy (obvious shout-out to The Wizard of Oz and its tornado) will provide all kinds of data from inside the whirlwind, and that could perhaps lead to a better and earlier warning system. Several of the attempts fail, and we know just how many copies of Dorothy there are: four. You can count down to the end of the film by keeping track of how many of these trash cans get lost or destroyed. Oh, and in order to make the plot seem more complex, Bill and Jo are in the midst of getting a divorce so that he can marry Jami Gertz’s Dr. Melissa Reeves, a reproductive therapist, who is one of the first characters on film that I can remember being obsessed with taking phone calls at the worst possible times. I’m not overly fond of how badly the film treats Gertz’s character, to be honest; she’s an outsider who is subjected to a lot of awful stuff in a short period of time. She barely misses being hit by a truck that’s falling from the sky, and she has to overhear her fiancé confess his love to the woman who is still officially his wife. She does get one of the funniest lines in the entire movie – “I gotta go, Julia. We got cows!” – but it’s all just too much for her, and you certainly can understand why. Gertz is also unfortunate in having Philip Seymour Hoffman as her scene partner too many times. Hoffman seems to be acting in another film altogether, and many of his line readings are far too odd to come across as realistic. The supporting cast includes other great actors like Alan Ruck and Jeremy Davies and Todd Field (best known now as a great film director). It even has Cary Elwes as a rival storm chaser who has corporate sponsorship and more high-tech equipment, but he doesn’t have the instincts that Paxton’s character has for tornado behavior. Money can’t buy everything. The film also features the great Lois Smith in the relatively small role of Jo’s Aunt Meg, whose house collapses in spectacular fashion after being almost leveled by a tornado. She’s a warm presence when she’s on the screen trying to feed all of Jo and Bill’s crew at her home surrounded by kinetic sculptures that clearly have something to do with a later plot point. Still, much of the focus is on Hunt and Paxton’s characters; they share an excitement over storms, and you know almost from the start of the film that they are destined to be together. They fight together through rain and hail and strong winds to get Dorothy to work, so why wouldn’t they have worked harder on keeping their marriage alive? We don’t really know much about why they broke up, but do we even really care? Don’t we just want to see how the visual effects artists can convince us that a drive-in theater showing The Shining is being destroyed? There’s a weird thrill to seeing Jo and Bill drive though a house that’s been dropped by a tornado and is directly in their path as they’re driving to the next stop. Those are really the best moments of Twister. By the way, I’ve also seen Twisters (2024), and its special effects are also top-notch. Even though it follows a few of the same plot beats as the original, the newer film does spend more time letting us get to know the characters and their histories.

Oscar Nominations: Best Sound and Best Visual Effects