Twister
(1996/Blu-ray)
Picture:
B+ Sound: A- Extras: D Film: D
Speed (1994, see the Blu-ray elsewhere
on this site) was such a huge and even surprise hit for
cinematographer-turned-director Jan de Bont that Hollywood let him make any big
film he wanted to make. They were all
henceforth, bad fluff that thankfully were not hits, but only after Twister (1996) became another huge
moneymaker thanks to being one of the very first films to successfully
implement digital effects in a then-very convincing way by was of tornado
effects.
Helen
Hunt and Bill Paxton play a couple of weather scientists who intend to take
advantage of a insane set of storms heading for a small town by using state of
the art equipment to capture scientific data never before recorded… if it does
not kill them first. Michael Crichton
co-wrote this effort and it is more melodrama and effects than anything, but
years later, it is only the leads who make this worth even looking at. Also, it is too jokey, which is a sign of
desperation to fill in its thin idea for 113 minutes.
Since
then, the film has become a demo favorite for home theater systems and
especially for sound, to the point that it remains one of the few feature films
Warner ever issued on DVD with a DTS soundtrack. So how does the Blu-ray fare?
The 1080p
2.35 x 1 digital High Definition image was shot in Super 35mm by Director of
Photography Jack N. Green, A.S.C., and his work is good but the effects at this
point look more like an HD cable network ad for vacuum cleaner efficiency. However, it is consistent and a few shots
look really good. The Dolby TrueHD 5.1
mix far outperforms the Dolby Digital 5.1 mix, but best of all, is better than
the DTS DVD track that was so celebrated, delivering the best version of this
famous sound mix yet. However, it was
never a mix with great character and its performance has been trumped often
since for state of the art reference, but it again is the highlight of this
title and that aspect has made in into the High Def era impressively well.
Oh, and
one other thing. The dumbest of the dumb
jokes is a drive-in playing Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980, see the HD-DVD review on this site) before a
tornado hits. The film is shown as a
scope 2.35 X 1 film. It was NEVER a scope film and has created one
of the greatest technical myths about any Kubrick film to date. It also epitomizes the sloppiness in which
this was made, a sloppiness that will haunt this film in perpetuity.
- Nicholas Sheffo
