Time: 113 Minutes
Age Rating: PG
Cast:
Helen Hunt as Jo Harding
Bill Paxton as Bill
Cary Elwes as Jonas Miller
Jami Gertz as Dr. Melissa Reeves
Director: Jan de Bont

I heard about Twister for a while, mainly that it was a classic 90s disaster flick involving tornadoes. I had never gotten around to watching it before, however. Having finally seen it, it turned out to be a lot of fun.

The writing isn’t anything spectacular and the characters are pretty thin. It is very silly and cheesy, but enjoyably so. The storyline was entertaining enough, and largely without a dull moment. I say largely without a dull moment, because the subplot focussing on Bill Paxton and his new fiancée really didn’t add a whole lot to the movie and slowed things down, that’s it though.

The cast is stacked and are quite good here, even if there’s not much to say about their characters. Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt are great in the lead roles, and the chemistry between them is quite believable. The supporting cast are good too, including Cary Elwes, Alan Ruck and especially Phillip Seymour Hoffman.

Jan de Bont does well in his second most well known directing effort, after Speed of course. There are plenty of over the top and entertaining set pieces involving tornadoes, which are on such a large scale. There’s a lot of big visual effects, but also has good use of practical effects, and the sound editing is great.

Twister is definitely highly implausible and silly, but also enjoyable dumb fun, with plenty of thrilling and over the top set pieces and some good performances.