If you’re not familiar with the story, here goes.
Bill Harding is an ex-tornado chaser. He use to spend his time with his ex-wife (who was his wife at the time) chasing and predicting/researching tornados. When he decides to put up his barometer and call it quits, he quits on his wife as well. A year or so later, Bill shows back up to get divorce papers signed so that he can marry Dr. Melissa Reeves. While there, he gets involved with Harding’s chase for a tornado, which of course turns into a terrible obsession instantly to do the work again. Ready to find tornados, and considered one of the best in his field, Bill Harding works with Jo to try to track tornados and unleash a technological wonder called ‘Dorothy’ (named after the Oz character — the classic movie Oz, not the HBO prison show) that will help them learn more about how a tornado is formed. If tornados weren’t enough to keep them on their toes, they also run into a cocky rival named Dr. Jonas Miller, who is fully supported in his plight to achieve the same information.
I think that Twister did more for the visuals and sounds in a theater/movie environment than it did for the plot/storyline. Visually, it’s a masterpiece and a prelude to where the movie industry was certainly leaning. With beefed up special effects, straight from ILM, and an in-your-face kind of feeling, the tornados in the movie seemed very real in 1996 when this first hit the movie theaters. On top of this achievement, the sound effects were very stressed in the film as well, which made the experience of the film even deeper. So, if you’re lucky enough never to have heard what a tornado sounds like, Warner Brothers kindly obliged in the experience. You can tell through the movie that these two things were clearly the focus. There are several scenes in the film where you see objects flying into the eye of the camera (or digitally flying into it) where it was there to make the audience jump. There are times still, on this Blu-ray, where that is the case. I have to commend the filmmakers on this point, it was well-taken.
This movie was goofy. How else can I put this nicely? The relationship between Jo and Bill was weak. If I were a man separated from my wife, seeking a divorce and already engaged to another woman, would I really change my mind due to a tornado experience? It just doesn’t seem realistic enough. Not to mention that you can’t love Bill Harding’s character for dumping Reeves halfway through the movie. How do you forgive a jerk like that? Awful! Speaking of awful, does Bill Paxson have any sort of range as an actor? He’s the same guy in Titanic, True Lies and Twister. His one stand out role, which separates him from those three films is Aliens. He plays whiny perfectly. As for the rest of the cast, Cary Elwes is a perfect a-hole. He can play an a-hole with charm and suave. It’s amazing how well he does that, if not frightening just slightly. You’ve also got Philip Seymour Hoffman playing a goofy/slob perfectly. That was probably a prelude to greatness in other films. Let’s not forget about Jeremy Davies who played Laurence perfectly. It was probably the role that lead to his future role in Saving Private Ryan. Excellent actor.
Two thins that troubled me about this movie is the technical work and the story. First, the technical work. If you’re going to spend millions and millions of dollars on a film, please learn how to edit (or at least use a green screen). During the water tornado scene, when their truck is stuck on a single path (only good for one vehicle) crossing the lake/river to get closer to the two tornados, you have a wonderful two-shot of the Hardings. If you notice in the background, there is a red car on the single-lane road, driving on the other lane that doesn’t exist. That’s just pitiful editing. What’s even worse, is when Jo and Bill are arguing after Dorothy tips over when an existing tornado is trying to form out of very black clouds (that completely surround them), when you go to the two-shot of them arguing in the rain, there are no black clouds… anywhere. This is just poor, poor, poor editing on the director and editor.
As for the story itself, it’s not believable. When I saw this film in college, when I saw Bill Harding pick up dirt and throw it in the air and almost immediately know where the storm was headed, I thought, “Why the hell do they need Dorothy?” In fact, they didn’t. It’s a neat storyline on paper, but when you have moments like that you pretty much just killed any hope of intelligent plot-points.
Overall, it could have been much better, but on the flipside it could have been much worse. I appreciate how this movie leaped the industry forward on visuals and sounds, but I can’t love the story or characters one bit.
Blu-rays of sunshine through the storm
Outside of the movies itself, Blu-ray makes the experience better. It really looks gorgeous, puts you in the situation a little closer and improves the sound so much that you still jump at the moments when the movie calls for it. I like it on Blu-ray, I just wish that I loved the movie itself more.
As for the features, they actually help the film out. Here’s what you get:
-Commentary by Jon De Bont and Stefen Fangmeier
-Featurette Chasing the storm: Twister Revisited
-The History Channel Documentary Nature Tech: Tornadoes Anatomy of a Twister
-HBO First Look: The Making of Twister
-Van Halen’s Humans Being Music Video
-Theatrical Trailers
The History Channel documentary and the featurettes could make this purchase more than worthwhile. I know it makes the Blu-ray and the movie more entertaining. I’m glad that Warner Brothers went the extra mile to make this a good release that’s worth it. Most studios tend only to send the movies out with no extra reason to enjoy the Blu-ray. Bravo for them.
Only an F-3 overall…
Again, I think the story was a bit weak, the acting stale, but the visuals and sounds aren’t bad, in fact they helped the experience of the film. On the Blu-ray side of things, it makes the movie better. The enhanced HD, the better audio, the great features make the Blu-ray worth your time. If you are looking for an intense experience, start here, but ignore the actual story, it will only make you run for cover.