At some point during Twister, I remembered Jack N. Green shot it–he shot a bunch of Clint Eastwood’s nineties pictures. So, Twister looks great. Jan de Bont’s a fine director, he knows how to shoot Panavision.
It’s really a lousy movie, a lousy summer action movie. It’s a perfect roller coaster movie in terms of plotting–there’s no reason to see it twice. The “ride” is the only important thing about the movie. Since it’s all special effects, the characters are anemic. It’s very boring when they try to make them likable. Philip Seymour Hoffman is crappy in it, which is surprise, given what he’s gone on to do. The entire supporting cast is awful, even people I like–Alan Ruck, for example. I suppose Todd Field is all right.
Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton are both fine. Cary Elwes is terrible, Jami Gertz is terrible.
One of the more interesting things about the film would be the sunglasses. Gertz wears dark sunglasses while Hunt wears see-through ones, it’s obviously so you can see Helen Hunt emote but not Jami Gertz–to get the audience ready to dislike Gertz.
Considering other action movies, Twister‘s not too terrible. It’s competently made; it’s got a terrible screenplay, but whatever.
It offers nothing. If it were on in the middle of the night, it’d take a lot for it to be the most compelling thing to watch. It’s so unspectacularly bad, there’s just no reason for a person to watch it.
