Advanced Search >
Help Me Search

DVD

Upcoming Release Calendar
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores

Recent DVD/Video Releases

sort by namesort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Twister

EMAILPRINTWarner Bros.

Twister reviews
68
7.8 User Score:

Generally favorable reviews

Based on 17 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 9 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >

Movie Info

Genre(s): Action  |  Drama  |  Suspense/Thriller

Written by: Michael Crichton
Anne-Marie Martin

Directed by: Jan de Bont

Release Date:
Theatrical: May 10, 1996
DVD: August 22, 1997

Running Time: 113 minutes, Color

Origin: USA

Summary

RATING: PG-13 for intense depiction of very bad weather

Starring Helen Hunt, Bill Paxton, Cary Elwes, Jami Gertz, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Lois Smith, Alan Ruck, and Sean Whalen

The largest storm to hit Oklahoma in more than half a century is brewing, and it promises to drop multiple twisters into Tornado Alley. It's the storm that two rival groups of scientists have been waiting for to earn their place in meteorological history. (Warner Bros.)

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

It's hard to dislike a picture with flying cows and oil trucks.

Read Full Review >
89

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

It's a keeper, a tumultuous love story set against the backdrop of 24 hours of really, really inclement weather in the Oklahoma heartland.

Read Full Review >
88

USA Today Mike Clark

A summer crowd-pleaser worthy of its wind.

80

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Perhaps the greatest compliment that can be paid to the rush of raw excitement "Twister" creates is that it makes it possible to ignore the painful awkwardness of the film's expository sequences and thudding dialogue of the "OK, boss lady, hold your horses" variety.

Read Full Review >
80

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

Twister is full of marvelous special effects. The story exists only to provide some respite between those marvels, like dialogue in an opera full of terrific arias. [10 June 1996, p.24]

80

Empire Ian Nathan

This film encompasses everything that is both grating and great about the blockbuster. It gives scant regard to character depth or dialogue while still being a must-see hoopla of computer trickery that weakens the knees and raises the neck-hairs.

Read Full Review >
80

The New York Times Elvis Mitchell

Hurtling pace, by-the-numbers character development and exotic science. Tornado-chasing suddenly takes on a sex appeal not usually associated with horrendous storms.

Read Full Review >
75

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Doesn't have any pretensions. It is what it sets out to be: an effective piece of big money, early summer entertainment designed to blow viewers away.

Read Full Review >
75

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

And for a movie that stars acts of God, this work of mortals provides surprisingly little liftoff. The stuff that whips through the angry skies in Twister is the most exciting part of the spectacle. Essentially, we're turned on by debris.

Read Full Review >
70

Variety Todd McCarthy

Another theme park ride of a movie without an ounce of emotional credibility to it, Twister succeeds on its own terms by taking the audience somewhere it has never been before: into a tornado's funnel.

Read Full Review >
70

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

The engineering of the special effects is fairly impressive, and the sight of so many objects and creatures being buffeted about carries a certain apocalyptic splendor.

Read Full Review >
63

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

You want loud, dumb, skillful, escapist entertainment? Twister works. You want to think? Think twice about seeing it.

Read Full Review >
60

TV Guide Staff (Not Credited)

Extreme-weather buffs, thrill-ride junkies and anyone else in search of mindless entertainment need look no further.

Read Full Review >
50

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Audiences may howl at the hackneyed plot and dialogue, but you won't hear them over the Dolby sound effects assaulting your eardrums at a gazillion decibels.

Read Full Review >
40

Washington Post Desson Thomson

The scenes of destruction-apart from being great to watch-provide much-needed relief from these people's unidimensional banalities.

Read Full Review >
40

Washington Post Rita Kempley

Twister not only blows, it sucks, too.

Read Full Review >
38

San Francisco Examiner Barbara Shulgasser

Big swirls of computer-generated dirt, a bickering couple and the dead certainty that the fiancee will leave and the bickerers will get back together. An exciting night out, or what?

Read Full Review >

What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 7.8 (out of 10) based on 9 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Gavin C gave it a9:
A great thriller with a bit of romance and plenty of education.

K D gave it a10:
This movie kicks ass from beginning to end. great special effects great action great story, great everything.

Lucy K gave it a9:
This is a successful thriller; action packed, well timed, and great acting.

Saer A. gave it an 8:
Twister has great special effects althought the acting was average by Bill Paxton, but overall its a really good movie.

Gabor A. gave it a 1:
I don't know how, but it was worse than i expected.

Pat C. gave it a 7:
A movie of three dimensions: the basic story line - which is crap, the special effects - which are awesome, and an interspersion of refreshingly quirky elements – which while fragrant are not potent enough to overcome the heady stench of formula, but are worth suffering for. For example, the soundtrack is spiced up with offbeat musical selections (Deep Purple’s “Sweet Child in Time”) and the climactic scene from “The Shining”. Melissa (Jami Gertz) comes across as boring and annoying simply because she is the only sane character in the cast. She provides the one spot of class acting in the film. Her caring restrained acceptance, while soaked like a puppy left out in the rain, that she is losing her fiancé and must let him go, is truly touching and, in the context of this film, embarrassingly genuine. The film charges ahead in pursuit of a twister’s “suck zone”, determined to placate viewers with garbage, so Melissa drops from the show halfway along. The improbable and myopic story line proceeds to smother any further deviation from the romantic reunification formula, and tries to evoke absolution-by-tornado as a quest for the comfort of hearth and home, as in the Wizard of Oz’s, “there’s no place like home.” What it feels like is the scarecrow’s lament, “if I only had a brain.” Once the need to force the plot is disposed of and the good guys are happy happy happy, the film is free to conclude for what it really is, a theme poem about the weather. The most stirring part of the entire movie is during the credits as cumulus clouds pile into the stratosphere to Van Halen guitar licks. Bottom Line: As blockbusters go, good movie. (The Blockbuster Formula requires subtracting 3 points before viewing.) The special effects are better than good. As depicting tornadoes with enhanced authenticity, they are better than perfect.

Popular on CBS sites: Fantasy Football | Madden NFL10 | PGA Championship | iPhone | Video Game Reviews | US Open | Antivirus Software

About CBS Interactive | Jobs | Advertise

© 2009 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use