Twister
Rent & Buy
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.
What critics thought
Critics landed in roughly the same place on Twister: spectacular effects work, thin everything else. Where they split was on whether that trade-off was forgivable — some found the tornado sequences so viscerally effective that the cardboard characters and recycled plot barely mattered, while others felt that spectacle without human stakes eventually hollows itself out into mere effects-watching. Audiences, notably, were more forgiving than critics.
“when action is never shown to have deadly or pitiable consequences, it tends toward abstraction. Pretty soon you're not tornado watching, you're special-effects watching”
Richard Schickel·Time
“Yet the images that linger longest in my memory are those of windswept livestock. And that, in a teacup, sums up everything that's right, and wrong, about this appealingly noisy but ultimately flyaway first blockbuster of summer”
Lisa Schwarzbaum·Entertainment Weekly
“Twister is great fun -- suspenseful, exciting, clever. The script, by Anne-Marie Martin and Michael Crichton, is extremely witty, particularly in relation to the team of techno-nerds who run after twisters like cowboys after steers”
The Age
“it's a triumph of technology over storytelling and the actors' craft. Characters exist merely to tell a couple of jokes, cower in fear of downdrafts and otherwise kill time between tornadoes”
Desson Howe·Washington Post
Accolades
Genres
Action, Adventure, Drama
Cast & Crew
Jan de BontDirector
Helen HuntJo
Bill PaxtonBill
Jami GertzMelissa
Cary ElwesJonas
Lois SmithAunt Meg
Philip Seymour HoffmanDusty
Alan RuckRabbit
Sean WhalenSanders
Scott ThomsonPreacher
Todd FieldBeltzer
Joey SlotnickJoey
Wendle JosepherHaynes
Mark MancinaComposer
Michael CrichtonWriter
Anne-Marie MartinWriter
Jack N. GreenCinematographyFrom the studio
Twister
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.
What critics thought
Critics landed in roughly the same place on Twister: spectacular effects work, thin everything else. Where they split was on whether that trade-off was forgivable — some found the tornado sequences so viscerally effective that the cardboard characters and recycled plot barely mattered, while others felt that spectacle without human stakes eventually hollows itself out into mere effects-watching. Audiences, notably, were more forgiving than critics.
“when action is never shown to have deadly or pitiable consequences, it tends toward abstraction. Pretty soon you're not tornado watching, you're special-effects watching”
Richard Schickel·Time
“Yet the images that linger longest in my memory are those of windswept livestock. And that, in a teacup, sums up everything that's right, and wrong, about this appealingly noisy but ultimately flyaway first blockbuster of summer”
Lisa Schwarzbaum·Entertainment Weekly
“Twister is great fun -- suspenseful, exciting, clever. The script, by Anne-Marie Martin and Michael Crichton, is extremely witty, particularly in relation to the team of techno-nerds who run after twisters like cowboys after steers”
The Age
“it's a triumph of technology over storytelling and the actors' craft. Characters exist merely to tell a couple of jokes, cower in fear of downdrafts and otherwise kill time between tornadoes”
Desson Howe·Washington Post
Accolades
Genres
Action, Adventure, Drama
Cast & Crew
Jan de BontDirectorHelen HuntJoBill PaxtonBillJami GertzMelissaCary ElwesJonasLois SmithAunt MegPhilip Seymour HoffmanDustyAlan RuckRabbitSean WhalenSandersScott ThomsonPreacherTodd FieldBeltzerJoey SlotnickJoeyWendle JosepherHaynesMark MancinaComposerMichael CrichtonWriterAnne-Marie MartinWriterJack N. GreenCinematographyFrom the studio
Rent & Buy