Product Description

The house rips apart piece by piece. A bellowing cow spins through the air. Tractors fall like rain. A 15,000-pound gasoline tanker becomes an airborne bomb. A mile-wide, 300 miles-per-hour force of total devastation is coming at you: Twister is hitting home. In this adventure swirling with cliffhanging excitement and awesome special effects, Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton play scientists pursuing the most destructive weatherfront to sweep through mid-America's Tornado Alley in 50 years. By launching electronic sensors into the funnel, the storm chasers hope to obtain enough data to create an improved warning system. But to do so, they must intercept the twisters' deadly path. The chase is on!

DVD Features:
Audio Commentary:by the Director and Effects Supervisor
Documentary
Featurette
Music Video
Production Notes
Theatrical Trailer

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5500 in DVD
• Brand: HUNT,HELEN
• Released on: 2004-06-01
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, DVD, Special Edition, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Dubbed in: French
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 113 minutes

Amazon.com
Twister was a mega-million-dollar blockbuster--helmed by a director (Dutchman Jan de Bont) hot off another scorcher hit (Speed)--that flaunted state-of-the-art digital effects and featured a popular leading actress (Helen Hunt) who would win an Academy Award for her next film (As Good As It Gets). But ask anybody who's seen it and they'll tell you who the real star of Twister is: the cow. Not to give anything away, but the cow is one of those inspired little touches (like, say, Bronson Pinchot's career-making cameo in Beverly Hills Cop) that adds a touch of personality to a gigantic Hollywood production. The story is blown out the window after an impressive prologue in which Hunt's character, as a little girl, witnesses her daddy being sucked into a tornado. Basically, Hunt and Bill Paxton are thrill-seeking meteorologists chasing twisters in order to study them (and help warn people of them, of course) with a new technology they've developed. If you thought the Kansas tornado in The Wizard of Oz was every bit as scary as the Wicked Witch of the West, then this may be the movie for you. --Jim Emerson

Customer Reviews

Stunning Dolby 5.1 sound and Visual Effects
This is the best sounding 5.1 channel DVD that I have heard so far! The thunderstorms sound like the real thing and the dialog is always crisp and clear. This disc includes both widescreen and full screen versions of the movie. Unfortunately, there aren't any good special features on this disc (thats why only 4 stars instead of 5). I would have liked to have seen some behind the scenes info. This film has stunning visual effects and it would be nice to watch the computer art gurus in action! Even without special features, this disc is worth the money. It will squeeze every drop of performance out of your home theater!

Twister
Probably the best disaster movie made about tornadoes/twisters. The special effects were really exciting if you can overlook the inaccurate scenes enhanced for dramatic effect. It was a good balance between the story and the action. Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton were really good - actually the whole cast was wonderful.

Hang on!
If ever a film was made to perpetuate the stereotype of Oklahoma as a state mercilessly and relentlessly ravaged by tornadoes, TWISTER is it. As a resident of Oklahoma, I can assure the readers of this review of two things: 1) tornadoes do on occasion occur here; and 2) tornadoes do not come in endless waves, one after another, like some sort of demented assembly line.

Having said this, TWISTER is a remarkably entertaining film. It's a fasten-your-seatbelt, get-ready-to-duck, leave-both-hands-inside-the-car rollercoaster ride, complete with eye-popping, hair-raising special effects. This movie is a vivid feast for the eyes: menacing, swirling tornadoes of various shapes and sizes; flying cows; and an endless assortment of storm debris to block the path of our protagonists, from tractors to tanker trucks--even houses.

The plot plays second fiddle to the action and special effects. Thank goodness: if the plot had to carry this film, the movie would have collapsed into a sappy and contrived love story. From the very beginning of the film, when meteorologist Bill Harding (Bill Paxton) locates his estranged stormchasing wife Dr. JoAnne Thornton-Harding (Helen Hunt) out on the northern Oklahoma plains and asks her to sign divorce papers, the viewer instantly realizes: the couple, eventually, will get back together. Thankfully, Mother Nature takes over and the film takes off. Paxton and Hunt are solid in their performances, yet Philip Seymour Hoffman steals the show, as techno-goofy, slightly off-center Dusty Davis, a member of JoAnne's stormchasing team. If anyone can have a good time in the face of oncoming disaster, it's Dusty (who refers to a tornado's swath of destruction as "the suck zone").

Director Jan de Bont delivers nonstop action like a swirling wall cloud; TWISTER is nervous energy unleashed, a cacophony of sights and sounds that keeps the adrenaline flowing.