UK Film Review
- Apr 8, 2021
- 3 min read

Twister (1996) film review

★★

Directed by: Jan De Bont

Written by: Michael Crichton, Anne-Marie Martin

Starring: Bill Paxton, Helen Hunt, Jami Gertz and Philip Seymore Hoffman

Twister Movie Review

Wind...the theme of many films, don't believe me...duh Gone With the Wind?! Tonnes of the stuff in that film, and Final Destination, when the wind blowing signifies that death is on its way! Yeah, the wind is a big player in the film industry! But no film capitalised more on the wind genre of cinema than 1996's action classic Twister.

Twister is the story of a bunch of ragtag goofballs that love driving around in their big American cars chasing tornadoes. They built a machine called Dorothy that, when thrown into the centre of a tornado, releases little balls that will help them gather more data on windy movements, thus allowing people to be warned earlier about impending tornado attacks.

While on the tail of a massive storm, Bill, an ex-storm chaser comes to get his nearly ex-wife to sign their divorce papers, and she faffs a load until he is sucked back into the world of driving near wind and shouting a lot about wind, he probably wanted to divorce her because she was faffing too much, and here she is faffing more, solidifying his point...women, who needs ‘em?

Bill does, apparently, because he brought his new girlfriend to the divorce signing, and then dumps her in the car with another dude while he rides up front with his ex-wife...what a dick, clearly his love of tornadoes is taking a front seat, that and his sexy ex-wife, she is actually more fun than the new girlfriend but come on dude, don't play it like that right in front of her face!

Anyway, the girlfriend leaves once she realises Bill is way too attached to wind and now his ex-wife and the team are left to throw their invention into an F5, which is apparently a super bad tornado, and this F5 killed the ex-wife’s dad when she was a kid, so now it’s...revenge?

Does the wind have feelings? Who knows at this point, this movie is more fun if you think about it as a revenge flick.

They avenge her father’s death, kiss in a pile of rubbish and the goofy people all high five in the background...the end, thank god!

Twister was one of those 90's flicks that banked big, apparently it was a number 1 at the box office for a while, and I ask...why? This is a film that is essentially people shouting about wind...ALL THE TIME! There is so much shouting, high fiving people going ''woooo'' every time they roll out! And I get it, adrenalin is high right, but do we need it all the time? Can we not take a break and, you know, develop some characters? Nah more ''WOOOO'' please.

If you want action, cows in the air, shouting... and wind? Twister is ya jam, and for its time the CGI was pretty good, it’s immersive and tense and the storyline is well developed enough to make storm chasing have enough content to fill a full-length film, we kind of care about the characters, but at the same time aside for the main couple, everyone is treated as a filler, which sucks because Philip Seymour Hoffman’s character is someone I wish we got to see more of.

I can see why it made the number 1 Billboard spot, this is a family action movie, it’s there to sell to the masses, shouting, sounds, trucks, America!!! people are gonna lap that up, but if you’re looking for something to blow you away (yeah I know I'm hilarious) in regards to character development and script, then you may want to sift through the many other wind-based gems I mentioned earlier.

So this Throwback Thursday film review teaches us: