Twister
Rating: 4/5
By: Nathaniel Simpson
I am terrified of tornadoes. I have been scared of them ever since I was little, freaking out a little bit when my family drove to Florida from California during the peak time of tornadoes that year. I also don't think it helped that one of the films we watched right before going was Jan de Bont's 1996 blockbuster, Twister. I remember being terrified by the opening scene, where a man was sucked into the natural disaster as the door is torn off the cellar door. Now watching it when I am much older, I think "Twister" still showcases some fantastic scenes of disaster, making it one of the perfect examples of a successful disaster film.
The film follows a group of tornado chasers led by Helen Hunt's Jo, who is a professor that assembled an underfunded group of students to try and create a tornado gathering-data device. It was conceived by her estranged husband Bill (Bill Paxton), who now wants nothing to do with the group after leaving his wife. When he comes back to try and urge Jo to sign their divorce papers, he realizes that the device, aptly named Dorothy, is ready to use and they are going on their next chase to find out if it works. When he also finds out that their competitor, Dr. Jonas Miller (Cary Elwes) has stolen the idea and made a device of his own, it urges Bill to join the team for a mission to defeat their opponent and, hopefully, save millions of lives.
I think to fully grade this film, you have to divide what it offers - the spectacle of a blockbuster flick about a ragtag group chasing tornadoes and a film that deals with an emotionally complex story and characters. I don't think it is fair to judge them together in the same class, so you really have to decide which is going to make a sacrifice for the sake of the film working. In this case, the story and development of characters takes a backseat to the massive, beautifully crafted spectacle that de Bont wanted to create.
The tornadoes and the set design for this film is absolutely stellar, even to this day. If it didn't work, the film would simply fail and be considered a farce of a disaster movie. De Bont was tasked with trying to make these natural disasters look real, and these characters to feel like they are real people who are in this unfortunate line of work. I think he does a fantastic job of doing this, and the disaster scenes he shoots are marvelous. I mean, consider the F5 tornado that Bill and Jo have to outrun in his red pickup truck. You're sitting on the edge of your seat while debris and huge obstacles land in front of them, obstructing their path to safety. Or how about when they have to physically run away from this giant twister while watching a barn being absolutely deconstructed in a couple seconds. The disaster and destruction are beautifully horrifying, and works so incredibly well.
However, I did mention the real lack of story and character development. There is a story here, just a very basic one. You can sum up the entire plot of the story in just a couple of sentences, which Steven Spielberg called a High Concept film in terms of blockbusters. Yet, I wish they dived a little deeper into the character development and why they act and feel the way they do. We are simply just living the lives of these people over the course of a couple days, and that's it. There's nothing to explain the characters from before all of this occurred. On the same side of the coin, the love triangle between Jo, Bill, and Bill's fiancee Melissa (Jami Gertz) is very two-dimensional, and I think they could have improved and added onto that storyline so much more.
At the same time, I think Hunt and Paxton are fantastic as the lead characters, and they do have very good chemistry together. They are a lot of fun to watch, and command the screen whenever they are present. I simply loved watching them chase, and then run away from, tornadoes. At the same time, I think the supporting ensemble including Gertz, Alan Ruck, Lois Smith, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Elwes, and more do a great job of really filling in the voids of where Hunt and Paxton don't. I don't mean for this to sound demeaning or anything as I actually really enjoyed these little characters and subplots of this group they have been running with.
Overall, I think Twister is one of the essential disaster movies, and is still such a fun and enjoyable film in 2024. It really does a great job of making these tornadoes and disasters look so scary and thrilling, yet so exhilarating at the same time. This film does a perfect job at keeping the viewers on the edge of their seats, and I'm sure it made so many more people terrified of huge tornadoes.
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