This week our planned cinema visit trip was to see Twisters, a sequel to the 1996 film Twister.
We could not really remember it at all, in fact all we really remember was that it features a cow flying into the air because of one of the film’s storm twisters.
Other than not a lot else, other than it was by the director of Speed, Jan De Bont and it starred Helen Hunt and the late, great Bill Paxton.
So, a rewatch was due, we had it on DVD but we decided to revisit a few other disaster movies as well.
We tried to choose disaster movies that were down to climate like Twister, so we avoided any films where earth was in danger from an Asteroid, ruling out Armageddon and Deep Impact for example.
We also ruled out disaster movies on transport, such as The Poseidon Adventure and the Airport series.
We also ruled out classics The Towering Inferno and Earthquake as we had watched them not so long ago.
And we avoided the Invasion movies, such as Battleship; Transformers; Independence Day and Godzilla.
We chose six films to take us up to the seventh day which would see us seeing Twisters and these are the six we chose.
A Roland Emmerich double bill of 2012 and The Day After Tomorrow.
Roland seems to be the modern day Irwin Allen, as nearly all his films have the planet under threat, he also had us under attack from a Moonfall; Godzilla and probably most famously, Aliens in Independence Day.
We preferred The Day after Tomorrow, especially its first half, disaster spectacular , but its second half quest of Dennis Quaid to reunite with Jake Gyllenhaal does make the film feel longer than it was.
2012 has its moments but is really dragged down by its overlong run time of nearly two and a half hours.
Which is a shame as it’s cast reunites John Cusack and Amanda Peet from Identity and has a fun extended cameo from Woody Harrelson.
We then had a lava-llous time with Dante’s Peak and Volcano.
We think we enjoyed Pierce Brosnan/Linda Hamilton action disaster movie than the Tommy Lee Jones and the late Anne Heche starring Volcano.
Both deliver disaster and peril with great special effects, but both unlike the two previous Emmerich films, also felt less serious and more of a fun ride.
Next up was San Andreas, a real big action film starring Dwayne Jackson, but it was barking mad about films fav, Alexandra Daddario being in it as well, that made us add it to the list.
This was definitely more like the previous volcano films, in that it was definitely more of the action disaster, rather than scientific fact, as some of the escapes are just ridiculous.
That being said Volcano features a sequence which sees Tommy Lee Jones attempt a rescue as a high-rise building is about to be destroyed, you’ll need to see the film to see if it does.
In fact, some of Johnson’s helicopter rescues are just as ridiculous but they are all part of the fun.
Also for one sequence, it seems to suggest he and Daddario are both fish, for the amount of time they seem to be able to spend underwater without breathing apparatus =)
Which all led up to a rewatch of Twister before we visit our local cinema to see its sequel.
Beware flying cows =)
As for the disaster movies, we actually struggled to remember any big ones of recent years, other than the two Gerard Butler starring films, Geostorm and Greenland, but with Twisters having done surprisingly well at the box office, maybe we might see some more big disaster films on the way.
What are your favourite disaster films? We would love to hear from you.
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For more inspiration of films to watch or you want more ideas for what to watch then why not check out our digital calendar full of ideas and dates in movies https://barkingmadaboutfilms-com.stackstaging.com/introducing-the-bmaf-film-club-calendar/
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