Starring: Helen Hunt, Bill Paxton, Cary Elwes, Jami Gertz, Philip Seymour Hoffman Directed By: Jan de Bont Average Rating: Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested) Binding: DVD Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Full Screen, THX, Widescreen, NTSC Number of Items: 1 Region Code: 1 Release Date: March 26, 1997 Running Time: 113 minutes Studio: Warner Home Video Theatrical Release Date: May 10, 1996
Amazon.com: Twister was a mega-million-dollar blockbuster--helmed by a director (Dutchman Jan de Bont) hot off another scorcher hit (Speed)--that flaunted state-of-the-art digital effects and featured a popular leading actress (Helen Hunt) who would win an Academy Award for her next film (As Good As It Gets). But ask anybody who's seen it and they'll tell you who the real star of Twister is: the cow. Not to give anything away, but the cow is one of those inspired little touches (like, say, Bronson Pinchot's career-making cameo in Beverly Hills Cop) that adds a touch of personality to a gigantic Hollywood production. The story is blown out the window after an impressive prologue in which Hunt's character, as a little girl, witnesses her daddy being sucked into a tornado. Basically, Hunt and Bill Paxton are thrill-seeking meteorologists chasing twisters in order to study them (and help warn people of them, of course) with a new technology they've developed. If you thought the Kansas tornado in The Wizard of Oz was every bit as scary as the Wicked Witch of the West, then this may be the movie for you. --Jim Emerson
Description: The house rips apart piece by piece. A bellowing cow spins through the air. Tractors fall like rain. A 15,000-pound gasoline tanker becomes an airborne bomb. A mile-wide, 300 miles-per-hour force of total devastation is coming at you: Twister is hitting home. In this adventure swirling with cliffhanging excitement and awesome special effects, Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton play scientists pursuing the most destructive weatherfront to sweep through mid-America's Tornado Alley in 50 years. By launching electronic sensors into the funnel, the storm chasers hope to obtain enough data to create an improved warning system. But to do so, they must intercept the twisters' deadly path. The chase is on!
DVD Features: Audio Commentary:Commentary by J. DeBont & S. Fangmeier Documentary:"Anatomy of a Twister" (8:30) Featurette:"The Making of Twister" (13:49) Music Video:"Humans Being" by Van Halen (3:33) Theatrical Trailer:Trailer - 2:00
A FAV ^ Had this movie on VHS, so bought it on DVD. Good movie. It has been on TV so I think at this point, everyone has seen it.
A Rip-Roaring Good Time ^ As movie thrillers go "Twister" ranks just behind Jaws (30th Anniversary Edition) and The Silence of the Lambs (Widescreen Special Edition) in my book. It has a great cast, a story close enough to real that my belief was easily suspended, and special effects creating a herd of the greatest movie "villains" of all time.
Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt play a married couple literally one signature away from divorce. They are modern meteorologists and their passion is chasing tornadoes. See, Helen watched a monster storm suck her father out of a storm shelter as a child, and now she is determined to launch "Dorothy" - a scientific data-collection gizmo - into an actual tornado so that the data can be analyzed and a tornado warning system designed based on this data. This is all back story with a single purpose - put our heroes in the path of several scenery destroying special effects.
We catch up with them on a big day - not only has Bill come to get Helen's final signature so that the divorce is final, but a storm's a-brewin'... and it looks like it could be a BIG one.
Indeed - well over half of the film is spent in about every variety of "holy SMOKES, wouldn't THIS be cool!" moment the screenwriters and special effects wizards could conjur. We learn in the expository intervening scenes that Tornadoes go all the way up to a Five on the Fujita scale - and only Helen has ever seen a Five, the one that claimed her father years ago.
We get to see tornadoes toss around heavy farm machinery like a puppy playing with a chew toy. Our heroes are out in the middle of it, of course, trying to put "Dorothy" into the path of the cyclone, and giving us a thrilling up-close look at the eye of the beast. Like a roller coaster ride, we know that every scene with a breather is going to be followed by the attack of the swirling menace. The film features a tasty and varied Twister: Music From The Motion Picture Soundtrack, with music from Van Halen, Mark Knopfler, k.d. lang and Alison Krauss. In one of my favorite scenes the storm chasers are taking a breather outside a drive-in movie theater. Up on the screen we see classic footage from The Shining, then we hear the familiar approaching roar. Then the screen starts ripping apart, first one tile at a time, then finally bursting as the deadly twister again bears down on our heroes.
Any film with Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Lois Smith and Cary Elwes in supporting roles has something going for it. (Although British Elwes employs his nearly intolerable "Texas" accent. The version he uses in this 1996 film is not improved the next year in Kiss the Girls. I always thought it ironic since one of the funniest parts of Robin Hood - Men in Tights was his declaration that "unlike some other Robin Hoods, I can speak with an English accent" - harpooning Kevin Costner's dreadful American accent in Robin Hood - Prince of Thieves (Snap Case). But I digress.)
Okay - this movie is not The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy (Theatrical Editions) [Blu-ray] or The Godfather (Widescreen Edition) or Citizen Kane (Two-Disc Special Edition). But it's a doggone entertaining way to spend 113 minutes.
Sweet movie ^ this movie started all the cool weather disaster movies. but twister is the best, it has great action, actors specail effcte and music. this movie is awesome. i recommend it to everyone
twister blu-ray ^ I find that movies not recorded in bluray in the theater tend not to look as good as movies made in the bluray format from the beginning,not a big difference between dvd's and a dvd re-recorded in the bluray format.
BLU RAY VERSION ^ BLU-RAY VERSION IS WORTH BUYING. I DON'T NEED TO TELL YOU ABOUT THE MOVIE, OTHERS ALREADY HAVE. BUT, NOT TOO MANY PEOPLE TELL YOU IF IT IS WORTH UPGRADING FROM YOUR REGULAR DVD TO BLU-RAY. THIS ONE IS WORTH IT. COLORS ARE STUNNING AND SOUNDS GREAT.
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