One of the things that gets me about movie reviews is that every thing has to be so subjective. In the case of this little movie, the subjective complaint is PLOT, PLOT, PLOT. A couple of things. First, when a latter-day movie has the name of Twister, what do you expect? A Long Day’s Journey Into Night? Schindler’s List? I think not. This movie is for escapism and it should be judged in that context.
Secondly, the movie does have a plot. Hell, there’s even sub-plot.
Bill Paxton is Bill Harding, a TV weatherman chasing his soon-to-be ex-wife Jo (Helen Hunt). You see, Bill wants to get married to psychiatrist Melissa (Jami Gertz) but he can’t until he get Jo to sign the divorce papers. Jo, however, is occupied. See, she is chasing something herself. Tornadoes. She hates them. She’s obsessed by them. So, she hunts them down so she can place small sensors into them. The sensors will give her and other scientists better information about them. While she’s chasing the tornadoes, she’s running away from Bill. She’s playing hard to get, or rather, hard to get rid of. Jo is ambivalent about divorcing Bill. She’s so ambivalent that she’s built his invention, named Dorothy, to launch the sensors into a funnel, if she catches one. Maybe, in the meantime, she’ll catch her man. Again.
So, off they go. Jo’s chasing tornadoes with her rag-tag bunch of storm chasers. Bill is chasing her trying to get her to sign the divorce papers, while trying to convince the aforementioned rag-tag bunch that he’s not back in the storm-chasing game. All the while, Melissa is trying to figure out all the things swirling all about her.
Meanwhile, while Jo’s group is rag-tag, the group headed up by Dr. Jonas Miller (Cary Elwes) is not. It’s slick and para-military. Dr. Miller seems to have ripped off Bill’s designs and constructed a sensor launcher of his own to rival Dorothy. So, it’s a race to see which storm-chasing team gets their device launched first.
I went into the movie house wanting a thrill ride and I got exactly what I wanted. It was an enjoyable experience. I can actually see Twister: The Ride on the Universal Studios tour in the forseeable future. That’s because the movie is just that, a non-stop thrill ride from start to finish with just enough of a plot to let you catch your breath and move the story along.
See for yourself.
Ciao for now!
Mikeylito @LEISURE 