Twins

Twins; comedy, USA, 1988; D: Ivan Reitman, S: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Danny DeVito, Kelly Preston, Chloe Webb, Bonnie Bartlett, Trey Wilson, David Caruso



In '52, scientists took the genes of six intellectuals in order to impregnate Mary Ann Benedict so that they can produce a perfect child. But she gave birth to twins: Julius and Vincent. 36 years later, Julius, who lived on an Utopian Pacific island, decides to find his twin brother in the US. There he finds out Vincent is actually a tiny, grouchy crook. Vincent, though, learns a lot of wisdom from him, but he already stole a mobster's car with a valuable engine. On their way, Julius falls in love with the girl Marnie and Vincent into Linda. They return the engine to the authorities and get a 50,000 $ reward. In an older home they search for their mother, but she doesn't want to tell them about herself at first, but then she does. Julius and Vincent get twins themselves.

Gentle and mild comedy "Twins", that had a genius idea of introducing the giant Arnold Schwarzenegger and the small Danny Devito as twins, managed nothing more than to craft a few neat gags around it, yet it still earned 70 million $ at the US box office, becoming the 5th biggest hit of the year. "Twins" are a solid film, but the direction by Ivan Reitman is very passive and meaningless, the tone unambitious, while the already mentioned concept full of contrasts was only moderately exploited. The best scene is probably the one where Schwarzengeer compares his muscles with the poster of Stallone, but then quickly dismisses it as pure coincidence, while DeVito also has a lot of charm in his role of the neglected twin Vincent, where the story even adds a little commentary about the influence of the environment on the process of growing up, though it hardly makes the viewers care more about it as a whole.

Grade:++