With the major push they have been making for the upcoming film Twisters it makes sense to give audiences a chance to revisit the 1996 original, Twister. The film was something fun and fresh in the natural disaster genre and featured a great cast including Helen Hunt, Bill Paxton, Cary Elwes, Jami Gertz, Lois Smith, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Alan Ruck, Todd Field, and Jeremy Davies from Speed director Jan de Bont and producer Steven Spielberg.

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Twister follows Dr. Jo Thornton-Harding, who as a small girl watched her father sucked to his death from her family’s storm cellar by a massive tornado. Now a storm chaser, a scientist who risks her life to study the dark side of nature by taking her data-transmitting instruments directly into the path of a deadly storm, Jo chases the largest tornado ever to strike Oklahoma as her marriage implodes and rival scientists will stop at nothing to steal her breakthrough.

 

I remember when this movie was released, and I couldn’t imagine how entertaining a tornado movie could be or even work to be believable. It wasn’t long before I was proven wrong when I saw this film on the big screen. Coupled with the great effects, intense action and a great soundtrack and I was hooked. I was so excited when they finally announced the sequel Twisters because that not only meant returning to that fun world, but the potential to get a new release of the original and here we are.

 

It has been years since I sat down with the original and I loved it just as much as I did back in 1996. The film is simple on the surface but offers up so much intense action with the tornados that at the time of release was an outstanding achievement in effects. A lot of films like this tend to still feel dated despite their excellent look, but this is not one of them. It