Deep in the heart of Tornado country, Jo Harding (Helen Hunt) and her cast of weather experts are attempting to track the biggie -- an F5 twister capable of destroying anything or anyone in its path. Watching an oncoming storm, they are hardly aware of the more pressing conflict that is driving head-on to meet them. Jo's ex-husband Bill (Bill Paxton) and his new betrothed, Melissa, are coming for a signing of the final divorce papers. On their arrival, Bill is enthralled to learn that his dream -- a way of possibly predicting and preventing tornados -- has come to life under the efficient fingers of Jo. Their brainchild, an oddity entitled "Dorothy" will release into the inner structure of the twister a series of small metallic balls that will send intricate computer codes to the main PC on the ground, therefore learning just what makes a twister tick... or more appropriately, where it will strike next. Only one problem -- to get it to work, it has to be left directly in the twister's path.

This insane and possibly suicidal mission is fueled by Jo's shadowed past. As a child, a storm came unexpectedly and she saw her father sucked to his death in the twister's core. Now she hopes to protect other families from a similar fate... if only to give them brief warning beforehand. Bill once more finds himself pulled into her world of destructive nature patterns and haphazardly agrees to go along. As a minor problem, they have scheming competition in the form of half-scientist half-fortune-hunter Dr. Jonas Miller, one of Bill's lifelong foes, who is determined to have his machine make history before their own. Fasten your seatbelts -- the chase is on! 

Despite a fairly incredible pretext and many impossible situations, Twister is a fairly good thriller. It bases itself pretty much on the spectacular visual effects and manages to tack on a reasonably decent plot and there's certainly nothing wrong with the acting! The cast is excellent -- Helen Hunt is at her dazzlingly best and reminded me somehow of the girl who played Joan of Arc for Hallmark. There are no vile innuendos, sexual situations, or gay characters to muddle the soup. However... the film discredits itself entirely by the repetitive, profane language. I stopped counting early on -- about every other word is a misuse of God's name in some form or another, coupled with other minor profanities and a few stronger ones (the most popular being "son of a..."). 

Violence is wrapped in around every sequence; one knows that whenever a slight break intrudes, disaster will inevitably follow. The characters are often caught up in the twisters themselves and yet are never seriously hurt -- no human being could survive through such violent opposing forces at work. Parents will be concerned by the force of the twisters themselves -- seeing both animals and people in peril; demolished houses, dark skies and deadly paths. One car gets too close and is sucked up. A huge tree branch thrown by the twister impales the driver's side (apparently skewering him) before the car looses momentum and is hurled a hundred feet to the ground, to explode in a bright ball of orange flames. A man fights the storm before being swept up into it; a truck is stuck in a ditch and then sucked up; people take refuge in a pump house against the wind. There's some blood and many scenes of animals in peril -- although thankfully most escape unscathed.