Twister (1996)
Directed by Jan de Bont
An unprecedented series of violent tornadoes is sweeping across Oklahoma. Tornado chasers, headed by Dr. Jo Harding, attempt to release a groundbreaking device that will allow them to track them and create a more advanced warning system. They are joined by Jo's soon to be ex-husband Bill, a former tornado chaser himself, and his girlfriend Melissa.
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The story can be described in two ways: as a rip-off of Only Angels Have Wings, in which Paxton's implausibly intuitive tornado expert is torn between two women, his ex (Hunt) and his fiancée (Gertz), and two lives, a safe weatherman job, or a risky return to the group of crazily devoted storm-chasers trying to get a gizmo up inside a twister's 'suck-zone'; or as a repetitive spectacle where all that happens is that the objects hurled around in the air simply get bigger.
The film lifts its romantic melodramatics of the adventurer hero torn between two lovelies from "Only Angels Have Wings."
Though "human barometer" Bill claims to be in a hurry to start his new life as a married weatherman, he can't quite get away, and thus the stage is set for a cross between His Girl Friday and The Abyss: anyone want to bet against Bill falling for his wife and his old job before the day is out?
Not to mention that the whole movie is sort of a remake of His Girl Friday.
Forget the many redundant references to The Wizard of Oz, this hasn't a fraction of that movie's logic, imagination or ambitions.
They also drop so many references to The Wizard of Oz that families can make a game of counting them.
Bill Paxton's tornado measuring machine is named Dorothy (from The Wizard of Oz, naturally), lines of dialogue are lifted from Star Wars ("that's no moon, that's a space station"), and Repo Man ("normal people spend their lives avoiding tense situations, Repo Man spends his life trying to get into tense situations.")
In one scene, a twister rips apart a drive-in playing The Shining, and Helen Hunt's aunt watches Judy Garland in A Star Is Born on TV.
And we at last arrive at the most important element in the Twister stew, the one that separates it from all its obvious forebears: director Jan de Bont, formerly a cinematographer of some really great action films and thrillers over the years - he worked several times with Paul Verhoeven, in the Netherlands and United States both, and did a marvelous job shooting Die Hard and The Hunt for Red October for John McTiernan - and whose sole directorial credit at that time was 1994's Speed .
Those themes are the bread and butter of director Jan de Bont, a former cinematographer (Die Hard) who made his debut with the pedal-to-the-metal Speed.
And we at last arrive at the most important element in the Twister stew, the one that separates it from all its obvious forebears: director Jan de Bont, formerly a cinematographer of some really great action films and thrillers over the years - he worked several times with Paul Verhoeven, in the Netherlands and United States both, and did a marvelous job shooting Die Hard and The Hunt for Red October for John McTiernan - and whose sole directorial credit at that time was 1994's Speed .
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They're witty (at the very least as an homage to Monty Python and the Holy Grail).
Remembering the rush of pure, dumb pleasure provided by Speed two years ago and primed by the high-intensity trailers that have so effectively teased its release for months, I couldn't wait to experience the Awesome Power of Nature, as harnessed by Speed director Jan De Bont, in Twister.
This year's first entry is the eye-popping, ear-blasting Twister, Jan De Bont's violent weather follow-up to Speed.
Married screenwriters Michael Crichton (yes, that Michael Crichton) & Anne-Marie Martin go to the edge with their story and dialogue, but they also help Hunt and Paxton to make Jo and Bill a credible match-made-in-the-heavens, and the action setpieces come at a pleasingly fast pace in a way that complements de Bont's genius as a director (he is, after all, the man who made Speed).
It's a special effect orientated theme park ride of a movie directed energetically by Jan de Bont ("Speed") as if he was on speed (which I assume was not so); the film's star is unquestionably the tornado.
And we at last arrive at the most important element in the Twister stew, the one that separates it from all its obvious forebears: director Jan de Bont, formerly a cinematographer of some really great action films and thrillers over the years - he worked several times with Paul Verhoeven, in the Netherlands and United States both, and did a marvelous job shooting Die Hard and The Hunt for Red October for John McTiernan - and whose sole directorial credit at that time was 1994's Speed .
Those themes are the bread and butter of director Jan de Bont, a former cinematographer (Die Hard) who made his debut with the pedal-to-the-metal Speed.
…he latter team features a who's who of character-actor talent, including future star Philip Seymour Hoffman (playing the most obnoxious man alive), Alan Ruck (Ferris Bueller's Day Off), Jeremy Davies (Lost), and Todd Field (Eyes Wide Shut).
The other characters you may recognize are Jeremy Davies (Spanking the Monkey -- he has about 4 lines), Alan Ruck (Speed, Ferris Bueller's Day Off) and Jamie Gertz (Less Than Zero, The Lost Boys).
The other characters you may recognize are Jeremy Davies (Spanking the Monkey -- he has about 4 lines), Alan Ruck (Speed, Ferris Bueller's Day Off) and Jamie Gertz (Less Than Zero, The Lost Boys).
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Except for Jami Gertz (The Lost Boys), shrieking nervously as a girlfriend obviously unsuited for life with a danger freak like Bill, no one is afraid; everyone is up for the party.
The other characters you may recognize are Jeremy Davies (Spanking the Monkey -- he has about 4 lines), Alan Ruck (Speed, Ferris Bueller's Day Off) and Jamie Gertz (Less Than Zero, The Lost Boys).
The movie does have a certain Spielberg-Chrichton feel to it, but it's no "Jurassic Park."
In Twister which was written with all the delicacy of a Hollywood T. rex by Jurassic Park's Michael Crichton and his wife, Anne-Marie Martin Hunt and Paxton play Jo and Bill Harding, Oklahoma scientists and, for romantic interest's sake, estranged husband and wife.
Produced by the same folks who brought us Jurassic Park, Twister has much of the same white-knuckle, edge-of-the-seat feel to it.
This drama about storm chasers on the cusp of divorce tearing ass across Oklahoma in hopes of launching their new experimental tornado research probe is, of all seeming impossibilities, a knock-off of Jurassic Park , a film whose structure it copies in fairly explicit ways.
But really you don't go to see the people in Twister any more than you went to see the people in Jurassic Park or Speed.
But strip away the visuals, and "Twister" has scavenged literally every story element from "Star Wars" or "Raiders of the Lost Ark."