Summer's begun. My calendar claims it's still more than a month off, but in Tinsel Town, and movie theaters across the country, the dog days are upon us.
Now, as everyone knows, there are three ways to make a summer block buster. The first method is to have a grotesquely muscled guy with a bizarre accent blow the crap out of a lot of the season's favorite bogeymen. This method has proven it's effectiveness time and again. The only problem with the grotesquely muscled guy method (GMGM for short) is that the GMG requires correspondingly grotesque monetary compensation (GMC) for blowing the crap out of the aforementioned bad guys.
Which leads us to the second method. In this method, known as the recycled franchise method, (RFM) a popular character or title from another medium is translated into a motion picture. Batman is, of course, the epitome of the RFM and this summer's entries are the Phantom and Mission Impossible. The problem with RFM is that you have to pay a lot of money to license the franchise and often still need a GMG to anchor the film.
Not surprisingly, the shortcomings of the GMGM and RFM led to the creation of a third formula for summer blockbuster success -- the no stars, big special effects method (NSBSM). The modern pioneer of this genre is George Lucas, who's Star Wars remains the finest example of the NSBSM. It is Steven Spielberg, however, who brought the NSBSM to its apogee with Jurassic Park. The great thing about the NSBSM is that while the special effects are expensive they don't get a percentage of the gross, never retreat to their trailers demanding another personal assistant, and never sue you for additional royalties.
This summer's first entry in the NSBSM is Twister.
Twister must have seemed like a great idea when it was pitched -- a script by Michael Crichton, directed by Jan De Bont (of Speed fame) and blessed by Steven Spielberg -- it would be Jurassic Park, but with weather.
And Twister does come close -- it has the same flat characterization, the same programmed suspense, the grievous plot holes and incongruities, that marked Jurassic Park. What it doesn't have is cooler-than-hell dinosaurs. And while the tornadoes look good, I don't really see kids buying the Twister Happy Meal figurines of the F-3 tornado or the devastated trailer park action set.
And missing a truly captivating special effect the audience is left with no choice but to actually watch the movie, which can't bode well for those responsible for this ill-formed thing.
Sadly, Twister stars Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt. Both Paxton and Hunt are charming actors and the looks of astonishment on their faces as they grind their way through the monstrous inanity of Crichton's grisly script is enough to cause a viewer pain. After each line they look like they want to check their watches and see how much longer they have to be on the set.
Crichton has never been an adept writer, his characters rarely more than crude collages of B-movie stereotypes, but in Twister he struggles to attenuate his normally two-dimensional creations into just one.
The story too labors under Crichton's riggored hand -- Twister takes us into the world of a rag-tag group of storm chasers attempting take the first measurements of a tornado from the inside. Mostly this involves Paxton and Hunt driving around in a red Dodge Ram truck (which is, apparently, immune to many of the effects of tornadoes) and yelling at each other.
One fundamnetal problem afflicting Twister is that you have to chase tornadoes, unlike dinosaurs, which chase you. It's hard to build suspense when all your characters have to do to save themselves is sit down and have a cup of coffee.
This gripping tale is augmented by a romantic sub-plot involving Paxton and his unfinalized divorce from Hunt. And, just to cover the bases there's a bad guy, Cary Elwes. Even though he just wants to do the same thing as the good guys -- take measurements inside a tornado so a better warning system can be devised -- we know he's bad because his group all drive matching black mini-vans and they rely on technology, rather than Bill Paxton, to track tornadoes. He gets killed.
Despite its lock-jaw grip on the formula, Twister never makes us care what happens to any of these people.
While many of Twister's faults can be blamed on its paint-by-numbers script, matters aren't helped by director De Bont. Unlike Speed, which raced briskly along despite starring Keanu Reeves, Twister simply revolves. Twister is all chorus and no verse. It feels like a two-hour version of the opening of ER, a lot of people running around, yelling technical things at each other and pointing, but unlike ER, there's no commercial break to alleviate the tedium of continual suspense.
Even stranger are the film's technical shortcomings. The lighting is wildly uneven, with characters bathed in bright light while the sky is only roiling clouds, and large sections of dialogue appear to be dubbed (it's probably hard to mike someone standing in front of colossal wind machine) which only adds to the general woodeness.
With the exception of the fact that it's not a romantic comedy there's little to recommend Twister. If I were you I'd get down in the storm cellar, turn on the Weather Channel, and wait this one out. Welcome to summer.
