Why Is It So Good? – Twister (1996)

WARNING: SPOILERS

After over 91,000 people voted, the International Movie Database gave Twister 6.1 stars out of 10. Do I agree with this rating? Yes and no. Twister is a favorite in our family. We’ve watched it so many times that we could quote entire scenes word for word and never get sick of it. But why is it so good? 

Jo and Bill are a couple on the brink of divorce, but if nothing else they have one thing in common, a passion to find out how tornadoes work. Their passion eventually brings themselves back together. Passion, that’s what life is about. That alone makes this movie worth seeing. Crazy characters like Dusty keeps the energy of the movie flowing. I mean, what’s not to like about an in-your-face, out-going, touchy-feely tornado chaser? Each character, even minor ones have their own personality. Jo is the fearless leader; Bill is the extreme; Dusty is, well, Dusty; Rabbit is good and Rabbit is wise; Jonas is in love with himself, etc. The characters are developed in such a way that it makes them hard to forget.

Small details and integration really grab at me; for example. At the beginning of the movie, we see a scene where a young girl loses her father to a tornado. We later learn that this girl is Jo Harding, who is now chasing tornados to help create an advanced warning system. Later when a tornado struck a town, Jo saw a family that looked similar to her own family when she was young. Another detail is when Jo and Bill got the idea on how to make Dorothy fly from looking at Aunt Meg’s famous metal sculptures. Speaking of Dorothy, I thought the few hints of The Wizard of Oz was appropriate and helped the audience relate to the story.

Witty remarks throughout the whole movie made it very quotable and fun to watch. The argument between Jo and Bill never gets old because it is so ridiculous, so marriage like, but oh so funny. Every single time the characters spoke they expanded on not only the story, but they revealed a little more of themselves. I am always reading in my screenwriting books that each scene and every dialogue needs to expand not only the story, but the character, and I feel that Twister accomplished that very well.

Visually wise Twister had a lot of moving camera angles which I found interesting.

Speaking of visuals…

Visually? This movie was extremely interesting; lots of tornados and metal sculptures to look at. But some things weren’t quite right. For example you could tell what moving tree was CGI and what was real, you could see the blurriness of the background for the sky and… did I see the reflection of the production truck on Bill’s car? I couldn’t quite tell. The continuity was a bit off in places, like when the tricycle smashed through the wind shield, there was never a hole left. The windshield got smashed numerous times but in some shots it was smashed and in other shots it was not. So that helped dampen the believability of the movie.

Could Jo and Bill really hold onto that pipe while they were in the center of the twister? Probably not, but what I can tell you is that that was one of the coolest shots which made that movie for me. I mean, have YOU ever seen the center of a tornado? I certainly haven’t and that was pretty darn cool if you ask me.

These are just a few of my thoughts about this movie, I’m sure I missed a great deal of points. If you’d like to help me out and pitch in your opinions feel free to comment below! Don’t worry; I won’t be mad if you don’t like Twister as much as I do. ;)