Waste of time

Go in cold, and you're likely to emerge with your blood boiling. This has to be seen to be believed.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Jo Harding (Helen Hunt) is an advanced storm chaser whom along with her crack team have devised a product that will help them learn more about tornadoes (as well as allowing them to get better warning of when they are due to arrive). Bill Harding (Bill Paxton) a former storm chaser turned weatherman is on his way to meet Jo to get her to sign their divorce papers as he is due to marry his new fiancé Melissa (Jami Gertz). However, upon hearing that a tornado is due to arrive Bill decides to help the storm chasers much to the dismay of his wife-to-be...After a fairly impressive opening, Twister unfortunately soon settles in to a rather banal set-up; Bill's ex-wife is chasing tornados and Bill heads over to see her to make sure that she signs the divorce papers and decides to bring his fiancé along for the ride. This automatically created an awkward and unnecessary love triangle and this whole scenario was a little ugh in the early stages.Once the story is established, we then move on to our crew chasing down various tornadoes that seem to crop up here there and everywhere. Now don't get me wrong I like a bit of spectacle and enjoy some cheesy escapism, but the thing with this film is that there is no real depth to it and it is literally just 2 rival sets of storm chasers driving round and chasing storms and sadly after a while it starts to become repetitive. What also drags this film down is a lot of the character who are just so unlikeable; Philip Seymour Hoffman and his cronies seem more like frat-boys than people and they seem to share this mentality (this may be funny to some people, but I personally found a lot of it annoying). The rival crew are headed up by Elwes who to his credit does a good job at being a smug annoying prick, but even his shtick starts to wear out its welcome and unfortunately like Hoffman and his mates he comes across as being irritating.Sadly, with so many unlikeable characters and so much smug in-your-face and irritating dialogue Twister is quite an ordeal to sit through and this isn't helped by a story that lacks no real narrative drive. In fact, I can only assume that this is why the director overcompensates in some of the set pieces - I literally couldn't keep a straight face when I saw cows flying across the scene and realised at this point that it was impossible to take this nonsense seriously.Ending on a positive note perhaps the only good thing I can say about this film is that I liked Helen Hunt's character and I appreciated why she dedicated her life to doing what she does and fully understood her reasons (which become clear at an early stage). I also thought that both Hunt and the late Bill Paxton had some great screen chemistry. However, these positives aren't enough to cancel out the many negatives aspects in Twister.The fact that Michael Crichton co-wrote this film makes me weep slightly inside. Is this the same Michael Crichton that brought us great films such as Westworld and Jurassic Park?

Who knew you could make a story about wind interesting. I wonder, if after the filming was done, Paxton was overheard saying, "Storm over, man. Storm over." Twister has a good cast, great eye candy, very nice FX AND if you can't laugh at flying livestock, I don't want to know you.This is a good flick and a must see for all us Helen Hunt fans. I can watch this every 5 - 7 years.

This was one of the movies I frequently watched as a kid, and took real interests in tornadoes from a kid's perspective. Of all the movies ever made, this movie seems to be one of the better known movies that is still frequently watched today, 20-years later. When I think of tornadoes I think back to this movie as I'm sure a lot of us do. This movie introduced me as a kid to the different scales of tornadoes. I didn't know there was a different scale of tornadoes, and a lot of people I knew didn't seem to know it at the time. Now, it seems like it's common knowledge that there are different tornado scales. Also, this is arguably Bill Paxton's most memorable movie, and I want to say R.I.P. Bill Paxton.You can watch this movie and be amazed by the action, showing the destructive power of tornadoes. This movie also takes place in rural Oklahoma, so we get views of that area. This movie also has a plot to it besides just chasing tornadoes and escaping them. A main plot of this movie is trying to get a tornado instrument in the air that analyzes tornadoes, Dorothy. It can also make us ask if tornado chasers really get this close to a tornado?This movie is entertaining, and well-remembered but it has it's flaws. One of the flaws is it is a long movie, almost 2 hours long. I'm sure if we watch the movie, we watch it for the tornadoes. The tornado scenes are breath-taking action that will keep us entertained. A lot of the other scenes tornadoes aren't in, aren't entertaining and we see the characters on a long drive in rural Oklahoma, using maps before GPS was common.Another flaw of the movie is I feel like the movie doesn't have likable characters or character development. We might like Helen Hunt as Jo in this movie, but there is nothing really interesting about the characters, aside from being tornado chasers. These aren't characters you'd care to see in a sequel. It just seems like a team of tornado chasers, that there isn't much to know about them. The only characters you can really name are: Jo, Bill, Melissa, Dusty, Jonas, and Meg. There's nothing really interesting about the rest of the characters, and another plot of this movie is seeing how Jo and Bill work together after filing for divorce. Can they get their relationship back?I also want to say that it's too bad they vilify the character Jonas. Jonas was played by Cary Elwes who plays the likable character Westley in a movie we've all seen, The Princess Bride. He also played Robin Hood in Robin Hood Men In Tights, a funny movie. Too bad they had to vilify him, and not like he's a bad guy, but the movie just makes him an enemy when there's a contest between him and Bill, a character we're supposed to like.All in all, this is an entertaining movie. But, because of the lack of character development or interesting likable characters, mostly just filling a role for the movie to work with this plot with little background information, I give this movie a 7/10. It still is entertaining and very good, but it has these flaws.

Twister is directed by Jan De Bont, is written by Michael Crichton and Ann-Marie Martin and has music by Mark Mancina. The film stars Helen Hunt, Bill Paxton, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jamie Gertz, Lois Smith, Alan Ruck and Cary Elwes.Twister is quite an experience. The film has some very good special effects and there's plenty of action and suspense. Despite the serious subject matter the film is very funny too, thanks to Philip Seymour Hoffman as Dusty.Bill and Jo Harding (Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt)are storm chasers who used to be married to each other. Bill wants a divorce so he can marry Melissa(Jamie Gertz). A series of devastating storms which develop into twisters bring Bill and Jo together again, as Jo and her team go after the twisters.The team hope to launch weather sensors into the twisters funnel, by doing so they hope to gather enough data to be able to help design a better twister warning system. To be able to launch the sensors they must get up close to the twister. They are all risking their lives, but do so because their aim is so worthwhile.The twisters they encounter get bigger and more frightening and the special effects for these sequences are very impressive.It becomes pretty obvious what will happen between Bill and Jo, I actually feel sorry for Melissa and Jamie Gertz makes her very sympathetic. This film could easily have ditched the relationship storyline and just focused on a storm chase team, it would have been just as good I'm sure.Alan Ruck, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Lois Smith all provide good support. Cary Elwes might as well be twirling a moustache as the films villain, rival storm chaser Jonas Miller.Twister is a very good film showing what happens when nature unleashes itself in full force. Makes you nervous whenever a strong breeze develops outside. Aunt Meg's delicious dinner makes me crave a dinner like that so bad each time I watch this.