Twins

Twins
by Ivan Reitman

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DVD Reviews of Twins

DVD Review: I liked this?
Summary: 3 Stars

The story itself holds a lot of promise and Danny DeVito and Chloe Webb perform spectacularly. The story is a well-woven tale of a family separated at birth.

The twins played by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito are the product of a Los Alamos experiment to create the most genetically advanced human being ever by mixing the genetics of several of the world's top performers in various professions from sports to science. The egg splits during incubation and all the good genes go into Julius (Arnold) and all the rest of the garbage goes into Vincent (DeVito). Julius is whisked away to a South Pacific paradise where he is given all the love, care, and education he can handle. He is told that his mother had died in childbirth. Vincent, on the other hand, is tossed away to an orphanage and told that his mother had abandoned him. Their mother, played passably by Bonnie Bartlett, was told that both sons died after birth.

The twins set out to find their mother in the hopes of putting the family back together. The main obstacles in their way are Vincent's criminal associates hounding them, the head of the experiment who is unwilling to help them, and their own disbelief in the veracity of the whole broken family story.

The twins complement each other well. Julius is a case of booksmarts, and Vincent is well-schooled in street smarts. Vincent has no faith in others, but Julius shows him how to open himself up to family. It's very touching in certain scenes.

However, two performances were not up to par. The first is Kelly Preston's portrayal of Marnie was bad. We get no sense of her as a real character, only as a sexpot lusting after Julius. She brings no depth to the character of Marnie, and despite her judicious flaunting of her 'talents' she comes across as nothing more than background noise.

Arnold's playing of Julius is likewise flawed, but more because of his lack of experience playing in a non-action movie. His best scenes are when he is lifting, breaking, throwing, or generally doing muscle-work. The portrayal of Julius really suffers when Arnold is trying to emote or appear intellectual. Still, Arnold is doing his best, and this is still one of his first comedic roles, so he gets cut some slack.

I liked this movie when I first saw it years ago. I don't know if I liked it that much when I saw it more recently. Everything seems to be put together well, but something rubbed me the wrong way. I'm giving it 3 stars as my own rating, but I think others may enjoy this movie a lot.

Description of Twins