A Look Back At Twister

Today I decided to take a look back at 1996's Twister. A film that had a domestic gross of over $240 million and was second that year only to Independence Day at the box-office. In '96 this movie was a big deal.

The plot is pretty straight forward; Bill Harding (played by Bill Paxton) travels to meet up with his estranged wife/storm-chasing meteorologist Jo (played by Helen Hunt) to pick up some divorce papers. Once Bill meets up with her and his former team of tornado researchers, he is quickly pulled back into storm-chasing. Wanting to see the DOROTHY research device he designed in action, Bill and his new fiancée Melissa (played by Jamie Gertz) tag along with the team to chase down a couple of twisters. Predictably, Jo and Bill start to reconnect and this, coupled with a few close calls with some tornados, causes Melissa to call off her and Bill's engagement. By the end of he film, Jo and Bill are able to successfully launch the DOROTHY device into an F5 tornado, gather a bunch of data, and presumably live happily ever after... or they died in a twister related incident after the events of this film. Who's to say?

Now, I have always had a bit of a soft-spot for disaster films (just in the past few months I've written entries about Earthquake, Airport '77, and The Poseidon Adventure) and Twister is no different. It's a flawed movie, with some laughable writing, and hammy acting. On the flip side though, it was nominated and even won several awards for special effects and sound mixing and in that regard, the film holds up pretty well for being nearly 25 years old. 

Has the movie gotten better with age like a fine wine? No, but if you're just looking for a straightforward, entertaining, popcorn flick then I think this one still gets the job done.
 3 out of 5