Twister, 1996.
Directed by Jan de Bont.
Starring Helen Hunt, Bill Paxton, Jami Gertz, Cary Elwes, Alan Ruck, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Lois Smith, and Todd Field.
SYNOPSIS:
Jan de Bont’s Twister arrives on 4K Ultra HD with impressive image quality, along with some visual tweaks by the director that he couldn’t pull off way back when. He talks about that and more in a new retrospective interview, and a bunch of legacy extras were ported over too. There’s no Blu-ray disc, but you do get a code for a digital copy. Highly recommended for fans of the film.
Sometimes I’m okay with meeting a movie where it is and going along for the ride. Such was the case with Twister, which I confess I’ve never seen before, despite its status as one of the first (or maybe even the first) movies to debut on the then-new DVD format way back when.
I’ll admit I was expecting more from a script written by Michael Crichton and Anne-Marie Martin, but I don’t know how much of what they wrote was changed by director Jan de Bont, who apparently had strong opinions about the dialogue and encouraged the cast to improvise lines sometimes.
As a result, the film feels like the script was written by someone who was new to screenwriting and had recently digested the thoughts of William Goldman, Robert McKee, and others like them.
You have the main protagonists, an estranged couple on the verge of divorce, Jo Harding (Helen Hunt) and Bill (Bill Paxton), who find themselves on one more tornado-chasing adventure together. Bill has brought along his new fiancé, Melissa (Jami Gertz), who knows nothing about the profession and can thus serve as a handy access character for the audience.
Jo and Bill lead a rag-tag group, including Philip Seymour Hoffman in one of his earlier roles, who are up against some corporate-funded heavies commanded by Jonas Miller (Cary Elwes). Jonas has swiped some cutting-edge technology that Jo and Bill developed and which Jo is about to use for the first time. Will Jonas be able to steal her thunder?
And, yes, Jo’s back story includes her father’s death at the hands of a particularly nasty tornado, thus explaining her stubborn determination to get in harm’s way and show how her technology can give people even earlier warnings about brewing tornadoes.
As the good guys chase a series of tornadoes across Oklahoma, with the bad guys constantly getting in their way, we learn about the different classifications of the storms. Mention of an F5 tornado ceases all conversation when it’s brought up, and, yes, that’s the one Jo and Bill will have to survive in the end, so they can decide whether they want to reunite.
I know, the preceding paragraphs sound a bit snarky, but, as I said in the beginning, sometimes I don’t mind going along for the ride. Twister may be a cookie-cutter film when it comes to plot and character development, but it’s a great adventure movie full of computer-generated special effects that were really exciting at the time.
And if you’re a fan, you’ll be happy to hear that this 4K Ultra HD release faithfully reproduces the movie as it should be seen at home. The image clarity is top-notch, with plenty of fine detail and a grain level that I would expect from a film shot in the early 90s. Purists may be unhappy that the color timing was tweaked, especially the green cast of the sky in one scene.
That “greengage,” as Philip Seymour Hoffman’s character puts it, was something de Bont specifically wanted added to the movie, as the director explains in a new 15-minute retrospective interview, The Legacy of Twister: Taken by the Wind. He discusses other tweaks made to the film and looks back on a production that may have used a lot of CGI but also had plenty of practical effects too, such as real hail that really hurt when it hit the actors.
The rest of the extras were ported over from previous editions, some from the DVD days, judging by their standard-definition image quality. I’m not sure if anything is missing, but here’s what you’ll find:
• Audio commentary: Jan de Bont and visual effects supervisor Stefen Fangmeier get together to discuss the movie, mostly from a technical perspective, which isn’t a surprise. However, de Bont does discuss some of the character development choices and other things that aspiring screenwriters might want to hear about.
• Chasing the Storm: Twister Revisited (28:58): This is a longer making-of documentary that answers the “How did they do that?” questions that many audience members likely have while watching this film. Again, not all of it was CGI.
• HBO First Look: The Making of Twister (13:51): This is a more standard featurette that’s more about promoting the film than actually getting into a lot o filmmaking details.
• Anatomy of a Twister (8:34): There had to be a featurette about tornadoes, right? This one gives a brief overview of a weather phenomenon I’ve thankfully never experienced.
• Van Halen “Humans Being” music video (3:37): Remember music videos? Remember Eddie Van Halen? I have fond memories of both, being a Gen Xer, and I salute both of them here. Rest in peace, Eddie.
The theatrical trailers are missing here, as is a Blu-ray, but you do get a code for a digital copy.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Brad Cook
