So, there’s a certain type of movie that might have one been superpopular, but not always for the “right” reasons. Sure, if an audience enjoys a movie while they watch it, that’s what really counts in the end, but sometimes that’s about all a person can say. These are movies where individual characters aren’t all that memorable, and that maybe the stakes of what they are doing is what really counts. But is the story or the characters all that interesting? Will I, seeing the movie, really remember much about it after the fact, or is it just there for eye candy?
Well, does anyone who saw Twister remember anything beyond that CGI cow?
Jo Harding (Helen Hunt) is a stormchasing meteorologist looking to get a better understanding of how tornados work in order to increase the warning time to give people time to get to safety from these dangerous storms. Her estranged husband Bill (Bill Paxton) used to be one too, but he’s getting ready to settle down with a new job as a TV weatherman with plans to marry current girlfriend Melissa (Jami Gertz), a licensed therapist. He just needs Jo to sign the divorce papers. Finding Jo is tricky as she’s out with her team of ragtag crazies trying to release some advanced censors or something into a tornado. You know, the usual. And she may still have a thing for Bill.
That thing may be mutual, but for all Bill just wants her to sign the papers, it doesn’t take him long to get sucked back into the world of stormchasing. That may be for the best as Jo is using a release system of Bill’s design, and a rival, better-funded team led by Cary Elwes’s Dr. Jonas Miller is looking to get all this done first. Sure, I would think it wouldn’t matter who got the data first if it saves lives, but what do I know? This is a predictable, by-the-numbers movie with bland characters where the movie’s whole purpose is to show off CGI tornados.
Yeah, normally I would wait for this paragraph after the plot summary to begin my evaluation, but there’s not much to Twister as a movie. I will say it has quite the impressive cast beyond all the people mentioned above, including Lois Smith, Alan Ruck, Jeremy Davies, and the late Philip Seymour Hoffman. That’s right, there are two future Oscar winners in the cast. And yet, I can’t say there was anything to really recommend here. The tornados actually still look pretty good in 2022, but this is an age where cheap CGI is the norm. Seeing the expensive stuff when there was less competition for it actually makes for a better experience.
But really, this is the sort of movie where I can basically guess what all the different characters are going to be like just by looking at them. There’s no mistaking the Hardings’ crew from Miller’s just judging by the hodgepodge of vehicles Jo and her guys drive around in compared to what could pass for a Secret Service motorcade that is Miller’s procession, to say nothing of the fact they force Bill off the road before we even see Elwes. Of course Jo and Bill will get back together. Of course the only casualties among the main cast will be the arrogant Miller and his hapless sidekick. And of course Melissa will figure out where Bill’s heart really is and let him off gently without the slightest look of regret. She should probably go hook up with Bill Pullman’s character from Sleepless in Seattle. Even the stakes here seem so low. They’re trying to release their drones to maybe figure out something, and that’s about it. If I can’t feel any real tension in a movie like this and I can’t even remember the names of the characters without looking them up, then it isn’t much of a movie.
Grade: C-
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