Twister (1996)
The dark side of nature.
What I’m about to watch any given week is about as unpredictable as the weather sometimes. You might think I would be doing another sword and sandals flick since last week would have been a great set up for it, but no. Oddly enough, although totally unrelated you could probably find some connections still - like nature and female leads - but I assure you those are in fact accidental to the real fact we are watching what we are watching tonight. I’ve been playing a lot of a video game with severe weather and tornados lately, and it’s been pretty fun - and then one of the “newly added” options happened to be the sequel to this movie - which of course led me to decide I should do the original movie. Get ready for a movie that might suck in all the right ways, tonight we watch Twister.
Nature is the most brutal lady around, and we are introduced to this concept when a tornado forms with very little warning, causing a lot of destruction. Unfortunately for the family taking shelter in their bunker, the door doesn’t hold and pops gets pulled away - an act that’s going to leave an impression on the young girl still there. Fast forward to the future and we join a man with his fiancee going to meet up with his technically current wife to get her to sign the divorce papers. This entire purpose very quickly gets put to the wayside when tornados start popping up, and the head lady and her crew are off to go try and catch them. This draws in the first couple, the man of which used to run with the crew on top of being married to the lead lady, to join the escapades as it’s revealed they have brought to life a science gadget both the leads had a role in creating that should it work could lead to a lot of research on tornados, and that could lead to earlier warnings and saving lives. Follow the crew as they tackle multiple tornados, some relationship drama, and a rival crew of sell outs who are way more interested in the corpo-money then they are actually saving lives.
Actors do a great job here. Personalities can come off a bit eccentric and larger than life, but considering these characters love chasing something as dangerous as tornados I feel a little crazy is almost mandatory. The fiancee serves as the fish out of water character for the non weather inclined to latch on to, and she does do a good job off giving prompts to fill us commoners in on some of the stuff you may not know. She also probably has the most commonly sensible reactions to near any tornado event going on to help ground it against the wacky and overly excited drive of all the others. Our two main leads do a great job, both alone and playing off each other, and most the side actors get to at least lay on a trait or two to make you get a little feel for what the character is supposed to be like - including one who we can feel a little sorry for, even if they are only on screen three or four times. Yes, some of the side folks and extras don’t get a ton to do, and at times there are certainly moments where perhaps eyelines or reactions could feel a little less then they could, but I don’t feel like any of it is bad enough to impact the overall enjoyability.
Part of what helps with the actors is the characters. I suppose at least part of that is also the writing - at least when it comes to the marriage plot line that kind of serves as the reason why at least two of the characters are even there. For the most part, I am a little hesitant to say there’s a ton of character advancement here, but the dynamic between our leads - all three of them, if we include wife-to-be - does shift as the movie goes on, and in turn I do think it would be fair to say that at least amongst them they aren’t really in the spot they were at the start and things have been set up and somewhat resolved. Granted, it also doesn’t really super hard spell that part out given all the weather interruptions, but there’s some implications to how that goes I feel. Side folks are there for entertainment value for the most part, but you do get enough out of their antics that they feel like a likeable bunch regardless. That said, perhaps some of the wackiness could come off as annoying to some folks. The rival team honestly could probably have just been removed and it wouldn’t really effect the movie much, but it does open up the chance for some comparisons that make our science and save lives main crew appear that much more likeable.
In this picture is contained the most eccentric character. Can you guess who?
Effects are where the movie will experience it’s strongest division in watchers at this point I feel. Most of the stuff on screen is fun to watch, packing entertainment value - but not all of it holds up as well. Some of the computer effects show their age (arguably most of them), and there are a few sight-line issues I mentioned before as well. Realism isn’t going to be a hundred percent on this either - granted, I’m no weather or tornado expert, but sometimes the distance at which a character is to a tornado compared to other things that are getting sucked up does feel like they also should be going for a twirl. Of course, to counteract this is all the practical stuff that’s there still looks great. Things like the drive-through scene look awesome, as does most the stuff that’s in real close. On the flip of that, there is some continuity problems here and there with vehicle damages.The weather itself also looks normally great - really the only somewhat iffy part is some of the tornados, which although can look impressive also don’t quite hold up to how awe-inspiring real ones can look. That said, I imagine the fake tornado route was safest for everyone involved, so fair enough right?
Audio is pretty good. There’s a few lines that are a bit quieter than things like music, meaning I can’t quite launch in with my normal “balance is great” line - it’s still not bad, but if you watch it on something with ad’s like Paramount watch out for that swap over if you have headphones on. Music is good, and there was at least one song in there I actually do know - less surprising is the fact I forgot what song it was by the end. The rest of it is also rather fitting anyway, helping sway the mood between tense and exciting as the scenes call for it. Line deliveries are good, and there’s definitely a little leeway with an actual weather event might sound like - but quite frankly, I also haven’t been in a tornado myself, so for all I know they do roar like a hungry dino-demon-beast as they hoover and throw everything in their path of destruction. Either way, they sound cool, so I’m not complaining.
As I’ve already alluded to a bit, I’m no weather or tornado expert. I’ve consumed a bunch of related media - like this movie, storm chaser videos on YouTube and the likes - but if I had to explain the science behind it the most I could do is prattle off something about weather, temperatures and pressure systems and really not be very confident in what I was talking about. Same thing largely goes for things like the suck and blow of the winds or how they move - there was a small one by my school when i was younger that broke a door to the building, but I’m pretty far away from anywhere Tornados are common-place. That said, I feel like this movie probably could have been the Jaws effect for weather systems, but I can’t speak to how many meteorologists and storm chasers came to their professions because of this movie and it’s premise. For the more mind oriented folks though, there is still a bunch of stuff here - even if yes, the main thing largely feels like nature be scary and man trying to triumph in any small way over it. Thanks to the whole love plot, you can also think about some stuff like marriage, vows and what they mean, and how people can get a little too zealous about things. With that also comes the whole trauma angle and how that can shape a person. Of course, the blatantly spelled out greed is bad part is in there too.
Doing for wind what Jaws did for sharks.
Even if it can look a little dated at times, and the science might be a bit wonky or played up for excitement I still had fun coming back to this one. The mix of bizarre, quirky characters that also still feel like real people combined with the intense awe and danger of weather the movie tries to get across really holds up fine even if the other parts might not as well. I feel like it’s hard pressed that people wouldn’t remember at least one element of this, especially if they watched it as a kid - and I also wouldn’t be surprised if that element was the “cow” line and scene. Now all I got to do is wonder why I now crave a Pepsi - and if you don’t get that, just to be safe, that’s a product placement joke.