Twister
Tags: mystery, action, boring

Plot synopsis:
In June 1969, a young family takes shelter from an impending tornado. The father, in an attempt to save his family, tries to hold the storm cellar door down, but gets sucked into the tornado and killed. Watching in horror are the man's wife and his daughter Jo, who, despite the horror of the storm and losing her father, is entranced by the funnel.The film cuts to the present day and meteorologists at the National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) are discussing a building storm system over Oklahoma which could produce a record outbreak of tornadoes.Meanwhile, retired storm chaser Bill Harding (Bill Paxton) and his fiancée Dr. Melissa Reeves (Jami Gertz) are heading out to meet Bills former storm-chasing team to get the final divorce papers from Bills soon to be ex-wife, Dr. Jo Harding (Helen Hunt) who, since the day her father died, has sworn to hunt down as many tornadoes as possible, not wanting the same fate to happen to someone else. Besides Jo, the team consists of the eccentric Dusty Davis (Philip Seymour Hoffman), Robert Rabbit Nurick (Alan Ruck) navigator, Laurence (Jeremy Davies) photographer, Joey (Joey Slotnick), Alan Sanders (Sean Whalen) Rabbits driver, Tim "Beltzer" Lewis (Todd Field), Haynes (Wendle Jospeher) who rides with Beltzer, and Jason "Preacher" Rowe (Scott Thomson).Jo, who is still in love with Bill, tries to stall because she does not want the marriage to end. Jo then tells Bill she wanted him out on the field because his idea for a tornado-analyzing device called 'Dorothy' has been built. They will put it in the path of a tornado to measure it from inside. Four of the so-called "Dorothy" weather machines have been built. Haynes tells them of storm activity, and they head out. Bills rival team shows up, led by Dr. Jonas Miller (Cary Elwes) with his assistant Eddie (Zach Grenier).According to Bill, Jonas is in the storm-chasing business "for the money, not the science." Bill sees Jonas giving an interview to some local reporters and finds out that Jonas has stolen his idea for the Dorothy weather machine, building his own version called D.O.T. 3, or Digital Orphagraphic Telemeter. Bill accuses him of stealing his idea, but Jonas says it was an "unrealized idea." Bill decides to stay with the team for one day in an attempt to beat Jonas.Bill's team heads out and Bill and Jo have a frank discussion of their marriage. Beltzer notices a small tornado, an F1, touching down in a nearby field and alerts the team. Jo and Bill drive into a ditch to get in front of it, but cannot get out of the ditch as the tornado closes in. They crash into a small wooden bridge and take cover under it. Jo wants to see the tornado up close, but Bill stops her just as the tornado lifts Jo's truck off the ground. Jo's truck falls in front of Melissa, who is driving Bill's truck. She drives around it, narrowly missing a collision.Bill comforts her as Jo inspects the damage and takes some of the sensors from the destroyed Dorothy 1 machine. Jonas' team shows up but is too late to see the storm and keeps driving. Jo, with no truck of her own, manages to convince Bill to use his new truck to haul the Dorothy machines.Bill's team heads out again as Bill, Jo, and Melissa ride in his truck. Another tornado, a slightly larger F2, has touched down, and both Bill's team and Jonas's team are heading to intercept it. Bill believes the tornado will shift its track, and his team heads off on a back road. Bill soon drives onto a bridge and they are caught in some waterspouts, which spin the truck. The team arrives just after the incident and while Jo celebrates with the team, Melissa breaks down, questioning Bill's old lifestyle.The team goes to visit Jo's aunt, Meg Greene (Lois Smith), in the nearby town of Wakita, Oklahoma to rest and eat. Meg tells Jo privately that Jo's marriage with Bill ended because, "He didn't keep his part of the bargain."As the team is watching TV, it mentions an F3 tornado is active, and the team heads out. Bill and Jo drive together in his truck, and Melissa rides with Dusty in his converted schoolbus. They almost crash into Jonas' team in an attempt to beat them. Bill's team attempts to figure out where the tornado is because according to their computers, it is heading towards them on the same road. Bill and Jo realize it is over a hill, and they go through a hailstorm to find it. Upon finding the tornado, Bill and Jo try to set up Dorothy 2, but run out of time. A power pole falls on the truck, ruining Dorothy 2. The tornado then lifts back into the clouds. Jo attempts to gather the scattered sensors, but Bill, realizing that the tornado has not dissipated but is simply back-building, pulls her into the truck as the tornado drops once more.They drive to a safe distance, where Jo jumps out of the truck and again attempts to gather the scattered sensors. She grows angry about Bill's attempt to stop her, but Bill tells Jo she is obsessed to succeed with Dorothy to prevent what happened to her family from happening again. He also tells her he still has feelings for her. Melissa and Jo's whole team hear their conversation over the CB radio.That evening, Bill's team heads to a drive-in theater, where Jo signs the divorce papers, while Melissa is in a motel room across the road watching a weather report of more tornadoes nearby. Dusty is watching the radar. Both Melissa's TV and the TV at the concession stand lose their reception as Dusty warns Bill that an F4 tornado is heading right for them. Everyone takes shelter in the pit of a car mechanic's garage while Jo watches it approach, spellbound, much like she had when she was a girl when her father was killed, until Bill's shouting breaks her trance and she gets the theatre employees to take cover. The tornado obliterates the theater, destroying several of the team's vehicles and Preacher is hurt when he is hit in the head by a flying hubcap.The tornado passes, and the team emerges to inspect the damage. Dusty looks at the radar to find that the same tornado is now heading directly for Wakita. Bill tells Melissa they are leaving to check on Aunt Meg, and Melissa peacefully breaks up with him, saying that she does not want to compete with his need to chase tornadoes. She tells him she is not at all upset about breaking up, knowing that their relationship would have ended sooner or later, and assures Bill that Jo needs him more.Upon arriving in Wakita, they find the town is destroyed, and Jo realizes there had been no warning. Bill and Jo find Megs home on the verge of collapse. Upon entering, they find Meg pinned underneath a bookshelf. Jo and Bill rescue her and her dog Mose before the house collapses. Meg manages to escape the tornado with nothing more than "a bump on the head" and a broken wrist, and is taken to a hospital. Before leaving, she tells Jo that she needs to succeed to make sure what happened to Wakita doesn't happen again. Dusty listens to the radio, hearing that meteorologists are predicting rare F5 tornadoes. Jo comes up with a way to make Dorothy work while watching some wind chimes. She has Bill's team fabricate pinwheels out of aluminum cans, and attaches them to the sensors with screws to make them fly.A few hours later, as dawn begins to break, Bill and Jo come alongside a huge, mile-wide F5 tornado in the countryside. They put Dorothy 3 on the road in front of the tornado and then back up, but the winds push Dorothy around, and then a tree knocks Dorothy 3 over, scattering the sensors. The storm turns toward Bill and Jo, and they attempt to drive away. They become stuck when a tree wedges underneath the back end of their truck. A tanker fuel truck is pushed along the road toward their truck by the tornado, and knocks them free before exploding. Bill drives around the wreckage through the fireball, narrowly avoiding catastrophe. Bill drives ahead of the tornado, dodging as it drops farm vehicles on the road in front of him. They end up driving through a small house that is rolled by the tornado onto the road.As Bill and Jo drive away, Jonas and Eddie ride to intercept the tornado and place their D.O.T. 3 pack. Jo and Bill, noticing that Jonas is driving too close to the tornado, warn him to change course but he ignores them. Eddie wants to heed Bill's warning, but Jonas orders him to keep driving. The tornado hurls a section of a TV tower through their windshield, impaling Eddie. Both teams watch in horror as Jonas's truck is lifted up by the tornado and thrown into the ground where it explodes, killing both Eddie and Jonas.Bill and Jo then conclude there is one last option left. They head toward a new intercept point, turn on Dorothy 4 without releasing it from its moorings on the truckbed, and then drive the truck straight at the tornado. With the truck on cruise control they jump out, letting it drive into the center of the tornado where it successfully deploys Dorothy 4.The team starts to celebrate as the Dorothy sensors work, analyzing the inside of the tornado, but then notice the tornado shifting. Bill and Jo notice it as well and flee to a nearby farm. They first take cover in a barn, but it is filled with sharp metal tools. It destroys the barn, and they dodge debris as they run to take cover in a small outbuilding. They find metal pipes inside this shelter and tie themselves to the pipes with leather belts. The tornado destroys the structure, and they are pulled upside down while anchored to the pipes. They manage to see the inside of the F5 tornado as it passes over them. It is filled with lighting and a smaller tornado in the core. Seconds later, the entire storm dissipates, and the family from the farm comes out of their underground storm shelter and observe their damaged farm. Bill and Jo debate who will run the lab and who will analyze the new data from Dorothy while the rest of the team arrives. The movie ends with Bill & Jo reconciling their relationship with a kiss, while the team celebrates their accomplishment.

Review: 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.
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.
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.
Whilst I admit that the script aint hot and there's no real story in the film, the action is great, the special effects are brilliant, the film moves fast and provides a slambang rocking good ride.
He has a talent for making films that are extremely kinetic and seem to actually MOVE and Twister is no different.The story is simple, we follow a group of storm chasers around tornado alley for 48hrs during the most active otbreak of tornao activity on record (not unlike what actually occured this past month in Oklahoma) all the while watching an estranged couple played by Hunt and Paxton fall in love again amongst the windswept action.The tornados are awe inspiring works of digital wonder created by ILM and really come across as powerful.
It's a fun movie with excellent special effects.Some people have complained about the story...I don't get it, the story seemed fine to me, given the nature of the film.
Also, I have to mention (before I forget) that I loved Jo Harding's (Helen Hunt's) group of storm chasers, they were a great bunch of interesting characters!
And, I have to mention writers Michael Crichton and Anne-Marie Martin as well, they both did a great job with the story!If you're looking for a fast-paced, energetic, interesting, fun movie with some killer special effects, then this is the movie for you!
Back then, the special effects in Twister were considered amazing and it was the first disaster movie to come out in a long time.
Each new scene that featured them, made me wish for a genre switch from "disaster movie" to "R-rated blood bath." I would have had my own outburst (of applause) if they had all been sliced open by heavy machinery in the middle of one of their asinine conversations.However the worst, dumbest, most excruciating part of this turd is that it presents a rival team of tornado researchers as the villain.
(Y'know like high school basketball..?) Bill Paxton actually has to deliver the line (I'm paraphrasing): "Jonas (head of "Team Bad guy") has no instincts, he sought corporate funding and he's in it FOR THE MONEY!" Sure, he's in meteorology for the money, not for the love of low pressure zones.
I think at this point a few veins burst in my head.Jamie Gertz was apparently supposed to function as the woman who might draw Bill Paxton out of Helen Hunt's clutches, but the writers did the usual "Let's make her a drag, so that when she has to go, the audience isn't upset." They actually make this device even more desperate, by having HER deliver the "We're finished" speech.
& being trusted by writers who don't assume you're an idiot.Making the proceedings that much sadder is the fact that the special effects are actually less thrilling than the low-tech canvas sock they used for a tornado in 1939 for the Wizard of Oz (!).This movie immediately appeared in a scene-for-scene TV ripoff with Bruce Campbell, called imaginatively "Tornado" that somehow made the whole thing even stupider, with expensive tornado sequences happening off screen during the commercials.
Actually, for a movie like this, the story and subplots are pretty well-developed.Dr. Jo Harding (Helen Hunt) is a tornado chaser who, with her team of ragtag scientists, is about to try and get their new science gizmo (appropriately named DOROTHY) up in a tornado to get scientific readings.
Enter Bill (Bill Paxton) who has come to get the divorce papers from Jo, but he and his high-strung fiancée (Jami Gertz) decide to tag along to see DOROTHY fly."Twister" would be just another round of eye candy (albeit very good eye candy, even by today's standards) if it hadn't been for a cast of extremely likable characters.
But these are minor quibbles, and I chose to give this film a 10 despite them because a, they don't dampen the film's entertainment value, and b, no one will notice (or care) unless they are looking at this movie from a critic's point of view."Twister" may not be great art, but it sure is great fun!.
Helen Hunt, Bill Paxton, Cary Elwes, Jami Gertz, Lois Smith, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Alan Ruck, Anthony Rapp, and the rest of the cast (as well as Jan De Bont, Steven Spielberg, and Michael Crichton) make this an entertaining and educational movie!.
Sure, a number of liberties are also taken with tornadoes ("fingers of God" - one character calls them), but what do you expect from a film directed by "Speed" Jan de Bont?And lastly, who goes to see movies like this for scientific accuracy?
The action begins when they're forced to take off to chase after the storm, and it's about here the film abandons logic and plot for nonstop special effects, peril, and destruction.Saying the acting here sucks and is uninspired is like saying we went to see "Jurassic Park" (1993) for the performances - understatement - get real.
Here, his character seems to know how the storm functions and what it "thinks," and in essence he's a human barometer (even his wild days as a radical storm chaser do deserve some laughs).The writing is substandard, including Jo's barely-hinted upon obsession with chasing the storm (as a child, she saw her dad killed by a monster F5), Lois Smith as Jo's Aunt Meg (who supplies our famished heroes with platters of beef and eggs between effects scenes), the underdeveloped storm chasing team (some of whom are more colorful than others, including Philip Seymour Hoffman as Dusty), and the unnecessary subplot involving stiff competition from Cary Elwes as a corporate-sponsored rival who stole Bill's invention.
Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton play recently divorced storm chasers Jo and Bill Harding whose relationship was pulled apart by Jo's obsession with chasing tornadoes to the exclusion of wanting any kind of "normal family life" by Bill's definition.
However if you're just in the mood for an action-packed film with a feel-good after effect, this movie fits the bill.The current rating of 6/10 is probably correct if you are comparing Twister with Casablanca.
There were 2 good things about this movie: If I ever need to inflict pain and misery upon an enemy I can send them a copy of this film, and if I ever want to make myself sick (for the purposes of calling into work or whatever!) I can rent this monstrosity and watch 5 minutes of it.People say it has wonderful special effects, and even this point I must disagree with.
Waste of money.Seems like Hollywood came up with a new nice graphical twister plugin for their expensive silicon gfx machines and thought they would make a movie entirely based on the new special effect.The constant stream of bad acting (partly due to the horrible script) combined with the never-ending, and totally unrealistic, ways the main characters get out of deadly situations by luck and by using goofy one-liners just makes you want to laugh ...
I also loved the fat tornado guy, who looked like he was going to wet his pants half the time, and you gotta love the line "oh yes, Rabbit is good, Rabbit is wise..."  And man, those sound effects that Mister Crighton brought over from Jurassic Park, the ones that made the tornado snarl and grunt and roar like some great windy dinosaur, they sound TERRIFIC on a surround sound system.
It only reminded me of what this film lacked.Twister wastes a number of good actors in small, meaningless parts, including the amazing Philip Seymour Hoffman: but then it is so dreadful that you could say it also wastes the mediocre talents which are its stars.
"Twister" is an educational movie that teaches you in no uncertain terms that there is nothing more noble, vital - and, yes, hip - in all the fields of human endeavor than being a reckless tornado chaser.The greatest disaster depicted in the film isn't the havoc wreaked by several tornadoes, but rather the obnoxious, shallow, and contradictory characterizations that destroy the story.For example, Helen Hunt, who is typecast for these kind of sanctimonious roles, leads the cast.
You'll never guess who he ends up with!Meanwhile, Hunt's supporting crew is made up of those lovable, formulaic oddballs that teach us how hip it is to be a science geek, and how "un-hip" everyone else is who just doesn't "get" what they do (like Gertz, who, in an effort to be portrayed as an "out-of-it" fifth wheel, is, in spite of the writers' intentions, actually the most sympathetic character in the whole movie!)Every movie needs the rival enemy, and evidently a plague of cyclones wasn't considered enough for this film.
I mean, if action heroes can outrun explosive fireballs, then outracing tornadoes, flying oil tankers, cows, and other assorted debris in a pickup truck is a piece of cake.I give the film a two only for mildly amusing special effects.
Having lived in "Tornado Ally" for the better part of 14 years, I can assure you that a tornado can suck up a tractor trailer as easily as I can pick up a piece of paper.Now to comment on the movie, I really liked Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt as the stars of this movie.
If you are obsessed by some activity (like studying/chasing tornadoes) and decide to form a club of like-minded, completely dedicated "nerds" or "geeks" focused on that activity, then watch this movie and make sure you don't act these people.
During the screening of "Twister" back in 1996, I spent the majority of the movie trying to decide whether "Pathetic" or "Awful" was the more appropriate description.Perhaps the worst fact about the whole movie is it was Helen Hunt's career best acting performance.
First the good news: the special effects for the tornado scenes are fun to watch.
The plot had so many holes in it that I could have drank wine while watching the movie because I really enjoy cheese with my wine.Since I live in Kansas, I have a pretty good familiarity with tornadoes, and you can't tell me that you can stand as close as they were to the tornado, especially an F5, and not get blown away and seriously injured.
Well, I have no desire to insult the American viewing public's intelligence (Twister did that enough for many, many reviews), but I will delight in telling you the myriad of ways that this movie insulted my intelligence, not to mention my $8 that I could have used to eat two artery closing servings of mozzarella sticks!Well, first of all, Cary Elwes turn was a "bad" storm chaser was so one demensional and unneccesary that it was hard to remember why we even liked him in "The Princess Bride."  Also, the "good" storm chasers were so unique and colorful that they made me want to throw up.
but when they actually got to the scene of chancing a tornado they had the radio OFF, talking back an forth over the CB.Who cares if they movie wasn't 100% correct on every single detail, heaven forbid if someone just sat back and enjoy the movie I suppose.This was a great movie to see the full use of your surround sound system.And kids just love this movie like mad.
While trying to beat his enemy Jonas (Cary Elwes) by perfecting a data-gathering instrument, designed to be released into the funnel of a tornado, Jo remembers the time of her father's tragic demise and she, Bill and his girlfriend Melissa go after the tornado as they attempt to insert the experiment into the heart of the monstrous weather.This is a pretty interesting film and an action-packed one at that.
The CGI effects are spectacular with some great action and the music score from Mark Mancina was surprisingly innovative.Although, not a masterpiece, Twister is still a good disaster film worth watching and a great take for Jan De Bont..
With a production budget of $92 million, Twister went on to make a staggering worldwide gross of nearly $500 million, not bad for a picture that the un-popcorn crowd like to call the worst written film of the 90s.The truth is, and trust me I would never try to sell a revisit to this movie to anyone who has seen and hated it, is that it is badly written.
The visual effects of all the twisters is breathtaking, having first seen it at the cinema it really worked and every viewing on my rather smaller TV set does not diminish the effect.The film fair cracks along as we get to chase round the countryside looking for the big bad wind.
I know this film is not a classic by any means, the dialogue isn't great and the characters are very one dimensional, but it is a fun movie.
Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt are very good and for me personally it was great to see Jami Gertz as she was in one of my all time favourite films "Lost Boys".
The sub-plots sometimes get too entangled with the main plot so that we need reminders along the way as to what they are trying to achieve here.The special effects are amazing - have you ever seen tornadoes like these on screen.
The way the tornadoes blew and wiped out landscapes were fantastic, not to mention the flying trucks and cows.While I felt that this movie probably showcased the special effects more than any particular actor's acting performance, they still did a pretty good job of the sometimes witty dialogue and actual acting needed..
"Twister" is a middling mess of a movie at best, the tornado itself given all the attention while the characters bicker and argue over who will save the day.
One of my favorite disaster movies that has the basic American elements to succeed: A dramatic blockbuster plot that everyone will enjoy or feel good for it's characters; spectacular f/x; a heroic rescue; and the occasional light humor to support the nerve tensing situations.I enjoyed this very much when it came out on theaters and I can say it was a great pop-corn flick.To these days, it hasn't aged very well mainly because of the kitsch plot and soap-opera acting but this movie is carried entirely but the f/x and spectacular sound.This isn't a classic by any means but still it's a movie that should always be remembered as one of the greatest classic hits of the 90's..
The mystery here is why on earth did Hunt ever fall for Paxton, why does she still love him, why won't she just sign the papers, why doesn't she throw him (and his counselor) into a tornado?This film would have been much better if it had just followed the typical horror movie formula and had the tornado suck up one crew member at a time while Hunt watched helplessly.
The plot is formulaic and predictable; if you don't know who's going to die or what's going to happen at the end, you've never seen an action film.If you have a thing for bad movies, Twister is a gem.
Twister is a good example of a film made purely to showcase special effects with a very simple plot concocted to hold it all together.
If there is one thing I've noticed about this film is that there was much negativity from reviewers when it was released and frankly I don't understand what they were expecting, it's a movie about storm chasers in a tornado outbreak trying to launch a probe into a tornado, if you wanted something more like the meaning of life you're not going to get it here.
We might like Helen Hunt as Jo in this movie, but there is nothing really interesting about the characters, aside from being tornado chasers.
Twister is a classic storm-related movie that is known for its special effects depicting the intensity and power of tornadoes.
Twister is fine if you like lots of big loud special effects, or are a natural disaster fan.
Even earthquakes, as awful as they are, don't scare me as bad as tornadoes do--that's because an earthquake doesn't look like a giant, living, breathing, demonic THING of a monster hunting you down with an agenda of killing you and devouring everything you own!So I avoided watching this movie for years until now.
Twister used to be my favorite movie of all time, but maybe thats because I was completely fasinated with tornados.
The CGI is great and the tornadoes look rather real but the mistakes in the movie kill it.