User reviews

This movie disappoints on almost every level. Even the once cutting-edge special effects (which are this film's only excuse for existing) have grown much less special over time. These characters may be paper-thin, but we never worry that they will be blown away: we know they are only trapped within a noisy but harmless digital effect that will repeatedly defy the laws of physics to ensure their safety. The tornadoes will pick up digital cows and farm equipment, but can't quite get a hold on the main characters, which is a pity, because they could only be improved by a few good smacks into the side of a barn.

I am willing to suspend disbelief in an action film up to a point, but in this case, even with no special technical knowledge about tornadoes, I constantly found myself saying "impossible." Imagine how much more frightening and dramatic this film would have been if it had characters you cared about and encounters with tornadoes that seemed at least remotely possible. Because the characters were constantly running from tornado to tornado there was never any build-up of suspense. Nothing is more ominous than the sky before a really violent storm, but we never got a sense of this since we were always plunging headlong into the centre of tornadoes. Every good horror director knows to hold back the monster at least some of the time. Speaking of which, what a self-defeating mistake for the director to include scenes from The Shining in this film - did he really imagine this mess would compare favourably to Kubrick's masterpiece? It only reminded me of what this film lacked.

Twister wastes a number of good actors in small, meaningless parts, including the amazing Philip Seymour Hoffman: but then it is so dreadful that you could say it also wastes the mediocre talents which are its stars. Apparently good tornado chasers are reckless, "wacky" and shout a lot for no apparent reason. "Aren't we just such fun?" they seem constantly (and desperately) to be asking the audience. Well, no they aren't, they're annoying. And the dialog that is supposed to bring these characters to life? Like the plot, it seems to have been produced by a cliché generator much less sophisticated than the machines that created the film's special effects. If you are over 12 years old you'll want to rent something better. And I may be insulting 12 year olds.

Twister is so painfully dumb that I'm surprised I made it through the movie without sniffing glue. It stars two b-grade actors, who prove again here they should not be handed the reigns of an expensive movie (Bill Paxton, Helen Hunt). But to be fair the script is lamer than any script has ever been in all of recorded time. What am I saying? Paxton and Hunt are terrible.

She's a tornado researcher who just happens to have a very standard Hollywood backstory: Dad, you see, was eaten by a tornado, and now she has a grudge, umm, scratch that; she has a weird Oedipal, erotic fixation with tornadoes that makes her trance out and walk towards them like a blond zombie. Uhm... sure. Conveniently this background and volition are explained, as I've never seen before, in a flashback. (< withering sarcasm) Moving along...

The tornado team you're supposed to root for is a bunch of unlikeable nerds played by unlikeable people (none moreso than Phillip Seymour Hoffman) who are prone to phony, over-directed cheerful outbursts. Each new scene that featured them, made me wish for a genre switch from "disaster movie" to "R-rated blood bath." I would have had my own outburst (of applause) if they had all been sliced open by heavy machinery in the middle of one of their asinine conversations.

However the worst, dumbest, most excruciating part of this turd is that it presents a rival team of tornado researchers as the villain. (Y'know like high school basketball..?) Bill Paxton actually has to deliver the line (I'm paraphrasing): "Jonas (head of "Team Bad guy") has no instincts, he sought corporate funding and he's in it FOR THE MONEY!" Sure, he's in meteorology for the money, not for the love of low pressure zones. I think at this point a few veins burst in my head.

Jamie Gertz was apparently supposed to function as the woman who might draw Bill Paxton out of Helen Hunt's clutches, but the writers did the usual "Let's make her a drag, so that when she has to go, the audience isn't upset." They actually make this device even more desperate, by having HER deliver the "We're finished" speech. Relievedly... she's OK with it. Gosh that resolved itself nicely. I'm glad I wasn't asked to feel any tension related to human emotions in this movie. Not since Sean Young excused herself out of the plot in "Cousins" has a scene designed to erase conflict so infuriatingly failed to erase conflict.

Do you know what's at least as entertaining as watching tornadoes break things; watching a good script resolve things intelligently or a great script do it cleverly... & being trusted by writers who don't assume you're an idiot.

Making the proceedings that much sadder is the fact that the special effects are actually less thrilling than the low-tech canvas sock they used for a tornado in 1939 for the Wizard of Oz (!).

This movie immediately appeared in a scene-for-scene TV ripoff with Bruce Campbell, called imaginatively "Tornado" that somehow made the whole thing even stupider, with expensive tornado sequences happening off screen during the commercials. That z-grade solution at least made me laugh.

This unredeemable slop should only be shown in the rural sector.

Twister is truly one of the baddest movies I have ever seen. It's so bad that I, seriously, got angry while watching it. Waste of money.

Seems like Hollywood came up with a new nice graphical twister plugin for their expensive silicon gfx machines and thought they would make a movie entirely based on the new special effect.

The constant stream of bad acting (partly due to the horrible script) combined with the never-ending, and totally unrealistic, ways the main characters get out of deadly situations by luck and by using goofy one-liners just makes you want to laugh ... or cry, I don't know.

The worst part must be the compulsory love story in the movie. Totally straight-out-of-the-road and spiced up with some sweet background music that goes right to your heart. Makes you wanna cry.

Unbelievable, hokey and downright stupid.. Wonder where I can get a truck that repairs itself like Christine, drive on its side up a stairway (the house WAS blown over, right?) and not be affected by 200 mph winds while dodging flying trees and semi trucks??

This one rates as the second worst disaster film I have ever seen. Only Volcano was a worse p.o.s.

Who knows? Maybe I would have enjoyed it if I had been labotomized first.

All the hype that surrounded this garbage should be heaped upon the head of the person who submitted this piffle to the general public. Heaped upon his head after being carved in granite that is. A more juvenile movie would be hard to imagine, but I suppose the folks in Hollywood can do it if anyone can. I almost became convinced while watching this film[?] that the twister had more brains than any of the characters; they didn't show me much in the way of anything except their immaterial love spats and divorce decrees. Gad, what shallow, immature dialogue. I particularly disliked the ending. The 2 heroes [chortle!] would never have survived the funnel had it gone directly over them as depicted, nor can a tornado suck a truck up its spout with such ease. In fact, it cannot be done at all. Maybe the producers of this thing expected us braindead audience types not to notice the failing of their 'big hit' because we would be so taken with the beauty of Helen Hunt [as Santa would say "Ho Ho Ho"]. What a bomb!

My girlfriend and I guffawed all the way through this twaddle. A particular high point is where the main male character thoughtfully lets earth fall through his fingers and based on that makes a sage prediction about the whereabouts of the next twister. Oh dear... This is really another fine example of a movie that should never have been made once the screenplay was submitted. Although the premise is interesting enough and the effects have the potential to be diverting at the least, it is irredeemably damaged by the pathetic plot-line and awful dialogue. I really couldn't have cared less about the dismal on-off relationship between the 2 main protagonists and the pathetic attempt to create some human interest that this represented.

The flying cows were pathetic and a suitable metaphor for the whole of this unremitting tedious nonsense.

First the good news: the special effects for the tornado scenes are fun to watch. That is the end of the good news.

Now the bad news: the other ingredients of this half-baked film suck more than any F5 tornado ever could. The dialog is so bad, it's painful to listen to. And the acting -- from the lead actors to the supporting cast -- is so bad that I am embarrassed FOR them.

How any of the lead actors were ever hired to do other films is beyond me. Yeah, they had a terrible script to begin with but unless the director was holding their children as hostage in order to coerce the alternatingly wooden and over-acting. I can only hope that they were victims of poor final editing. Maybe they thought the lame dialog )(in EVERY scene) would be patched together in some sort of coherent fashion. But noooooooo. The editing not only failed to help the dialog, it made it even worse. Way to many unnecessary close-ups added emphasis to the goofy dialog.

By the way, both the character of "Dustin"/"Dusty" and the supporting actor who played him should have been sliced and left to die on the cutting room floor. The fact that HE ever went on to make other films makes me want to put my left shoe up for an audition against him.

If the tornado effects weren't so good, the film would be entirely unbearable. The plot is pathetic. The dialog is lame. And the acting is mind-numbingly poor.

Friends don't let friends rent this movie -- or even view it for free on television!

This is the only movie where I actually became physically sick listening to the dialogue of this stupid film. Some of these people with the exception of Alan Ruck, must have graduated from the Dolph Lundgrend School of Acting. The plot had so many holes in it that I could have drank wine while watching the movie because I really enjoy cheese with my wine.

Since I live in Kansas, I have a pretty good familiarity with tornadoes, and you can't tell me that you can stand as close as they were to the tornado, especially an F5, and not get blown away and seriously injured. The closest you could ever get to an F5 and survive is the F5 button on your computer keyboard. I thought I was going to die watching this piece of.........

If you want to watch a movie with a tornado or something similar to it, I suggest watching the Wizard of Oz. At least Dorothy got knocked around a little in that movie.

I can say without hesitation that this is one of the worst movies I have ever seen. I could watch about five minutes of the special effects and be happy. The rest of the movie is putrid. The acting is uninspired. There is no chemistry between Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt, or between anyone in the whole movie for that matter. The dialogue is without a doubt the worst of any movie ever. The actors all deliver with either too much emotion or none at all. The things people say are just so inane and horrible I find myself wanting to shoot the screen. Even though it is supposedly an action movie, there is no suspense, no edge of your seat momment. Sure, the tornado is scary, but no one is ever believably placed in situation that could cause a reasonable person to actually believe they are in danger. (1/10)

This movie is completely absurd. It is a ridiculous love story set in 'tornado alley' in the Midwest. After reading some of the comments from my fellow 'reviewers' I see why this crapfest is rated so high. It is made to appeal to foreign markets and the young and/or stupid American market (a large market indeed).

In my opinion, the release of Twister in 1996 marked a turning point in Hollywood. It became apparent to movie makers that it really didn't matter if the dialogue was brainless or the plot was full of holes. It didn't matter if the actors could act or the script was convincing. What mattered was how loud and violent a movie could be. We in America love our violence and it translates well into any language. Since foreign markets make up a large percentage of a film's profits, it just makes sense to create long action sequences with as little conversation (or plot) as possible. In fact, Twister would have been improved had there been no discourse at all – just people fleeing from the hundreds of tornado's that terrorize the American Midwest everyday. I can't wait for Twister 2. Maybe Carmen Electra and Ashton Kutcher will be in it and there will be a lesbian subplot.

In short, if you have a nice home theater with surround sound and would like to have your intelligence insulted, I recommend giving Twister a go. Otherwise stick to something cerebral like the recently remade Starsky & Hutch movie. Carmen Electra is in that and she kisses another woman. No corporate sell-outs here baby, it's all about the science.

When I was a kid aged between 5 and 9, we used to go to Saturday morning pictures at the local Odeon. There we lapped up a diet of cartoons and b-movies and loved every minute of it. Now I dare say that I'd have enjoyed this film if it had been shown when I was that age. But I cannot believe that anyone over 11 years old could possibly think this film has anything to offer. If I hadn't have had the misfortune to also see Cruise II recently, then Twister would have to rank as the worst big budget picture ever. One of the other commentators says that the acting & dialogue in this movie is very good - are they serious?????????? This film is devoid of any 'plot' that deserves the name. Don't waste your time unless you want to keep the kids occupied for a couple of hours.

This was one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Absolutely horrendous. After I saw it, I decided to swear off most big budget action movies. It's a really stupid story, what else can you say? Oh my god, there's a cow flying though my window. Maybe if you were really stoned, and this happened to be lying around so you didn't have to make any effort to get it, you might get some laughs out of the inanity of it all. Let see, what else can I say to fill ten lines about such a dumb movie. Helen Hunt: never one of my favorite actresses, she always seems kind of glum. I'm trying to remember more about the plot; I saw this in the theater (I'm embarrassed to admit that my wife and I paid to see it) when it came out in 1996, so it's hard to remember to much about the story line other than — did I say this already? — IT WAS MORONIC.

OK, fine, the special effects were nice, but since when do special effects make a movie? When did it become OK in Hollywood to make movies that do not need a script that makes any sense, decent acting or characters you care about at all? Hell, even the "science" of the film was ridiculous. Abysmal film making at it's best. Crichton, as a highly educated man, should be ashamed to have his name associated with this trash.

This was truly a horrid example of Hollywood trying to make a blockbuster without heart or attention to storyline. Every moment of this film is an effort toward making a "spectacular", and not a moment is spent making film. Highlights include, a cow getting swept past a truck that is not swept up by the same wind, "evil" storm chasers in black trucks (yes, evil and in black trucks) who are "in it for the money" (what money?!??!), and a silly scene where apparently, you can run inches ahead of an F5 tornado ("The Finger of God")and suffer no harm. The writers make tornadoes into intelligent evil entities bent on destroying and killing...instead of just violent weather that is hard to predict. One scene has our heroes chased by a tornado, seemingly out to get them in an almost Three Stooges-type sequence where nothing goes right in their efforts to escape. It's silly, contrived, and the special effects aren't enough to make this watchable (I've no idea how people can enjoy a movie only for it's special effects). Trucks get thrown, houses explode, and cows float by...producers thought this would be enough for the "mindless masses" to fork over $9 at the box office. I was one of the suckers that did! Unless you are mindless, don't watch.

What is there in Twister besides Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton shouting at each other whilst driving around real fast for no particular purpose. How many dreadful movies like this can Steven Spielberg make before somebody notices the man has no talent past Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Yeah, the flying cow was good for a momentary chuckle; but how about putting some character direction, plot, purpose, et cetera into each and every movie. We took the trouble to drive the extra miles to see this one at Washington DC's finest theater, the Uptown, with their huge curved screen and $20,000 super sound system; but.....

Twister doesn't deserve ten lines of comment. How many ways can a writer describe an empty barrel? An empty movie?

The only thing separating the quality of the dialogue from this absolute piece of garbage and Adam Sandler's "Going Overboard" is that Adam Sandler isn't in Twister. How, as a reasonably respected actor do you let some nerd with a "take-1" chalkboard tell you to speak this drivel into a microphone? Whoever the dude was who said this deserves a 10 or 11 and whined "why do the critics hate every movie I love?" deserves to have 10 or 11 UFC lightweights break each of his limbs. Anybody who laughs at this poorly written, 21st century "safe, accessible" sitcom dialogue is a complete RUBE whose opinions on film are worthless. I would watch this again only if the alternative was a guillotine death. Please go to the local university and audit a film class, you complete geese.

Twister is your typical mindless summer film; an entire fireworks display of special FX with flimsy acting, B-grade dialogue, and crayon-written storylines. If you can avoid paying attention to the characters (all of them have to be zany cartoons), and cover your ears whenever they decide to open up their mouths and utter things to obscene to be heard, this can actually eb a subpar movie.

4/10

Twister's special effects are very good. That they've stood the test of time and are still fun to watch even thirteen years later is a testament to how mind-blowing they must have been in 1996. And the film's treatment of Oklahoma and Oklahomans is surprisingly kind; while the storm-chasers are portrayed as lunatics, the locals are not reduced to redneck caricatures, as is so often the case when Hollywood depicts people from the heartland.

But.

Everything else about this movie is dismal, from the melodramatic overacting to the cheesy dialogue to the unbelievably stupid plot. The writing is tremendously bad, and nearly every line uttered in the film is an action movie cliché. The tornadoes growl like animals and have a knack for dissipating at just the right moments. Meanwhile, humans survive storms of debris and high winds without a scratch. The plot is formulaic and predictable; if you don't know who's going to die or what's going to happen at the end, you've never seen an action film.

If you have a thing for bad movies, Twister is a gem. If you're looking for a riveting natural disaster story, skip it.

The special effects were kinda cool. But the acting and dialog were incredibly stupid. Jami Gertz is portrayed as a stupid idiot and the chaser crew was totally unprofessional. They came right out of "One flew over the cuckoo's nest" Hoffman's character was idiotic and not believable. He must have been behind on his rent to take this job or he needed exposure.

Also they way Hunt and Paxton ran through those tornadoes was totally unbelievable. They would have been impaled beyond recognition and made into swiss cheese by all of the debris. Those tornadoes moved too slowly also.

Up to now, Naked under Leather was my vote for worst movie I had ever seen. Twister doesn't even have "camp" value. It did provide moments of hilarity by the fact so, so much wasn't near believable.

Smash and bash and the paint work on the truck was not damaged. Wearing seatbelts was only a suggestion and protective wear, well forget about it. Manhandling the container for the equipment was a two person job even though it must have weighed over 200 pounds with additional flashing lights and sirens. When I saw the drive in, I just knew that it was a tornado target (the scene with the screaming teens must have been cut. Perhaps the scene with aunt being decapitated by the whirligigs was also cut).

Glad to see that they live in a place where EMS and police arrive less than 5 minutes after everyone digs themselves out.

Watching this film is genuinely one of the worst things that has ever happened to me. I was warned but went ahead and did it. I could spend hours explaining why this is so bad in almost every possible way, but can't be bothered. Its the films fault. It has actually sucked all meaning out of my life. Why would a film do this? I mean Mac and me was bad, as was Howard the duck, but this is one of those films that was marginally successful. I don't like giving films a 1 out of 10, just as I'm reluctant to give a film a 10 out of 10, but this film should be quarantined it is so bad. It is a danger to people with high blood pressure or who may be suicidal. There should be a health warning. People should be made aware that swine flu is nothing compared to this. I even had that novovirus thing and that was fun compared to this.

If, as one user suggests, this is the perfect example of what passes for 'entertainment' in Hollywood today, then I think I'LL pass... The fact that I believe this to be the exception rather than the rule provides scant comfort. Films such as the oft-trashed "Armageddon" may be said by some to insult the intelligence, but at least the story attempts to move forward a touch, to provide the characters with a different and more challenging obstacle to their quest. "Twister" does none of this, and as a result, it "blows" heartily (Arrrgh, I shall be condemned to 'pun hell' for evermore!)

It's not the cardboard script and variously bad acting that makes "Twister" so painful an experience (Lord knows it didn't hurt "Jurassic Park" too much...!) Rather, its the complete lack of imagination displayed by the film-makers. Whatever its faults, "JP" certainly had THAT quality in abundance; and a sobering but thoroughly true fact: Dinosaurs are a heck of a lot more interesting to look at than tornados.

By lack of imagination I mean the deficiency that, when pondering what to do to make the film more interesting for the audience, comes up with this formula: Tornado (pretty darn exciting), followed by BIGGER tornado (OK I suppose, but we've seen this already...) followed by EVEN BIGGER tornado (Yawn)...

This is a problem that hampers a lot of disaster films, sooner or later overexposure to said 'disaster' leaves us disinterested. So usually, film-makers try to combat this by having the characters respond to the perils they face in a vaguely interesting manner. What do the characters in "Twister" do? They run away. Hang on, isn't that what everybody else would do when facing a tornado, as well? The producers want us to say "Look! They're running away! Isn't that exciting?" No, it's just sensible, we don't want sensibility in a blockbuster, we want mindless bravado! (This is, of course, assuming that you're fortunate enough to be such a safe distance away that you can outrun a tornado, but still...)

In fairness, they may eventually do something a bit more proactive than running away, or they may not, I can't remember. Blame this on the horrid dialogue and unsympathetic characters. Ultimately, I remember only blessed relief as the credits began to roll. This truly IS a disaster, but one that all involved should not have survived...