Twister has always been one of my favorite summer blockbusters. Nostalgia is mostly to blame/credit for that.Twister is the first big summer movie I saw in theaters and the spectacle was heretofore unknown to me. As an impressionable 11-year-old, with a budding fascination with film and weather, Twister quenched a thirst within me that I didn’t even know existed.
Where do I start with this one? Twister is about as 90s as a 90s movie can be. Helen Hunt, Jan de Bont, Cary Elwes, with a script co-written by pop-science giant Michael Crichton. Plus Philip Seymour Hoffman and Todd Field in supporting roles. Cue the Stefon gifs, this movie has everything.
Hot off Speed, director Jan de Bont brings the same propulsive energy to this story of storm chasers following one tornado after another. The chasers are led by Dr. Jo Harding (Hunt) who is driven by a ferocious determination to save people from the tornado trauma she goes through in the film’s prologue. As Jo and her team are gearing up for a potentially historic tornado outbreak, Jo’s soon-to-be ex Bill (Paxton) shows up in a shiny red truck with his new fiancée Melissa (Jamie Gertz) to pick up divorce papers. Mother Nature has other plans and before you can say “tornado warning,” the crew is off to the races.
Of all the things I like about Twister, the aspect of the film that has worked its way to the top over the last few years is that the gang of storm chasers is a good hang. The scenes before the storms where the crew is BS-ing bring a sense of calm that is essential to making Twister the crowd-pleaser that it is. The movie falls into a two-step rhythm of setpiece-gab session, rinse repeat. The loosey-goosey sense of humor ties it all together and smooths out the ride to avoid tonal whiplash. The cast matches the tone quip for quip, dramatic beat for dramatic beat. A game cast gives any movie a certain qualitative floor, but it’s essential for popcorn cinema. Paired with the spectacle of the tornado scenes, and, well, popcorn doesn’t get much fresher than that.
Paxton is the perfect vessel to funnel this experience through. Few people convey awe and exasperation the way he did. Melissa is the more traditional audience surrogate character, a total outsider dropped in way over her skis and having everything gregariously explained to her by Hoffman’s jovial Dusty. But, the more I watch Twister, the more I latch onto Paxton’s Bill. Bill is doing his damndest to grow up, or at least what he perceives to be growing up, but the siren call of the chase still, and always will, touch a part of Bill’s soul. There’s little doubt what Bill wants to be doing, and what the script demands of the character, but Paxton’s plays the internal struggle well enough that it becomes relatable. It gets at something primal about our existence and it’s what makes Bill the best character of them all, despite the best efforts of the other actors.
After decades of watching Twister on TV, I was kind of blown away by how great the movie looks on the new 4KUHD. The skies range from the kind of blue beauty that takes your breath away to the bruised greenish-purple of a sky about to wreak havoc. The sound design on the film has always been a highlight, something that takes the action scenes to thrilling heights. The bonus features prove to be more of a tease, with the standout being a too-brief interview with de Bont. This set would be a must-own for fans of the movie just off the A/V quality. Anything the special features add is gravy.
In the lead up to the release of Twisters there was plenty of chatter from people revisiting Twister or chasing an F-5 for the first time, and it was about what you’d expect from online discourse: “Twister is awesome,” “Twister has always been terrible,” yada yada. It’s dopey, thrilling, nonsensical, cartoonish, and a total blast. For me, Twister is the epitome of what I want from a summer blockbuster. Nearly 30 years later, Twister still delivers the goods.
