“Back in ye olde summer of 1996, few could have imagined that we would eventually look back fondly on Jan de Bont’s Twister as the kind of movie ‘they’ don’t make like they used to. And yet, a scant two decades later, here comes Into the Storm to prime that nostalgic tear. At its best, Storm is like a really high-tech version of those science-museum wind-tunnel simulators that thrill groups of touring schoolchildren with their roaring blasts of hurricane-force gales. But stretched out to even 90 minutes, such thrills become monotonous, and by the time the film arrives at a climax that finds most of the cast waylaid in a storm drain, the effect is like sitting through all the cycles of some ultra-super-deluxe gas-station car wash. Into the Storm can make it rain like nobody’s business, but when it tries to be smart, it comes out all wet.” — from Scott Foundas‘s 8.7 Variety review.

Who played in both Twister and Long Day’s Journey Into Night?

Seriously — this clip reminds that Twister really wasn’t half-bad. The affecting performances by Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt and the remnants of their bruised relationship, Philip Seymour Hoffman‘s jocular performance, the better-than-perfunctory dialogue by Michael Crichton and Anne-Marie Martin, the first-rate effects, etc. Director Jan de Bont had it together when he made this and, of course, the earlier Speed (’94). And then he torpedoed himself with Speed 2: Cruise Control and The Haunting. By the time Lara Croft, Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life came out in ’03, his reputation was in tatters. Few directors have succeeded in such a big way, reaching the heights of worldwide commercial and critical acclaim, only to experience such a swift and terrible fall.