I was really afraid that, like other movies, when this film appeared on Blu-ray, the CG and effects would look totally obvious and fake. I was especially wary of the much-spoofed cow scene. Well, I am glad to say that Twister holds up really well and the film is just as good, if not better, than I remember.
The film opens up with a tornado about to take out a farm. A man, woman, their daughter and their dog rush to safety in a little bunker near their house. As the storm rages, the father holds the storm doors shut, but eventually the tornado rips the door from its hinges and takes both it and the father off. It turns out, the little girl was Helen Hunt's character as a girl, and Jo has made a life out of hunting and studying tornados. She and her team's mission is to learn as much about these storms as possible so that they can develop a better early warning system.
Jo and her team are getting ready to head out on another hunt, when her soon-to-be ex-husband and former storm chaser (now weather man) Bill (Bill Paxton) shows up with his fiancé to finally get the papers signed. When everyone rushes off to chase a twister, Paxton starts to remember the thrill he used to feel before his days on TV, and Melissa (the fiancé) realizes that he used to be a lot happier, and she didn't know him as well as she thought.
Both Jo's team and a rival group (with a lot more backing) have developed a device that should allow them to sends hundreds of sensors into the tornado and send tons of information back to the observers. This storm season turns out to be the most active in a long time and the movie has the groups going after six different storms, including a massive F5 (the most destructive type).
The special features include all of the ones that came out on the previous DVD release (deleted scenes, a commentary, and a few features), but it also includes a new retrospective called "Chasing the Storm: Twister Revisited" which not only focuses on the cast and crew's memories of the making of the film, but it also goes over the special effects used and why they stand up to the test of time. Essentially, the reason the movie still looks good is because it relies on CG very little. There are a high number of practical and physical effects used. Obviously visuals like the tornados themselves and the flying cows were CG, but the tanker truck flying across the road or Helen Hunt's father being pulled away by the storm - that was all real.
If you saw and liked Twister back in the day, then you will still enjoy it, and its move to 1080p makes the presentation of the movie just that much better. Both visually and from a storytelling point of view, this is just a great movie to see.
