Warner Bros.
With the recent release of Twisters being met with a mostly positive critical response and moderate financial success, it is only natural to wonder how 1996’s Twister holds up nearly three decades on from its release.
After the massive success of 1994’s Speed, Hollywood was keen to have cinematographer-turned-director Jan de Bont direct another action-packed spectacle, and Twister was just the ticket.
With her Oscar-win for As Good As It Gets still to come, Helen Hunt stars as Jo Harding, a tornado-obsessed meteorologist seeking to push the boundaries of weather science to improve warning systems and save more lives.
On her quest, she is supported by a rogue band of merry, storm-chasing eccentrics lead by Philip Seymour Hoffman, all of whom it is very clear Twisters tried to emulate with varying degrees of success.
While out in the field, Jo is sought out by her ex husband, Bill – who is played by the always likable and eternally missed Bill Paxton – as he seeks Jo’s signature to be able to finalize their divorce before he can remarry, but the question remains if Bill is truly ready to leave tornado-chasing and, by extension, Jo behind in favor of a more sedate life.
And off to the races we go, stalking roaring, cow-slinging tornados in a spectacle that delivers appropriately hammy entertainment to maintain a good balance between intensity and fun, sufficient chemistry between the leads to keep it engaging, and plenty of charisma from the cast as a whole to make it memorable.
Much like stand-alone sequel Twisters, plot is not the film’s strong suit, but the 1996 original is nonetheless a standout among natural disaster blockbusters of its era.
The pacing is snappy without feeling rushed, something the 2023 sequel did not quite manage to get right, meaning the 1996 film is the better paced of the two, just as the quick but steady pacing also leaves less room for pretentiousness and overly convoluted exposition.
In turn, this also means the original Twister spends less of its runtime on melodrama, however, there is still enough of it present to ensure the main characters have satisfying, if predictable, development, as well as allowing the audience to breathe between the increasingly outlandish tornado sequences.
This also results in the sense of urgency not only being sustained throughout the original film, the urgency is also gradually elevated as the stakes are increased along with the intensity of the tornadoes, once again making the sequel feel somewhat lacking in comparison.
The practical and visual effects also hold up rather well for a mid-90s action production, making it easy to do a double bill with the new sequel, which ironically had slightly too muddy visual effects at times.
Extras include audio commentary, new retrospective interview with Jan de Bont, featurettes, and Van Halen music video.
While it may have seemed like scraping the nostalgia barrel to make Twisters so many years after Twister, and with the new film being such an obvious retread of the 1996 film, it will undoubtedly lead many to give Twister another look, and whether it is your first time at the rodeo or you are revisiting it for the umpteenth time, Twister is a 90s blockbuster that is still worth revisiting for some nostalgic, carefree fun.
Verdict: 8 out of 10.
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