Film / Twins (1988)

Only their mother can tell them apart.

Born to be bad.

Twins is a 1988 comedy directed by Ivan Reitman, starring Danny DeVito and Arnold Schwarzenegger as twins.

Yes. That Danny DeVito and that Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Julius and Vincent Benedict are fraternal twins; the results of a secret experiment carried out at a genetics laboratory to produce the perfect child, using sperm donated by six different fathers. The mother was told that the children died at birth, while the children were informed once old enough that their mother died in childbirth. The program was a success but was shut down, due to one twin inheriting the "desirable traits", and the other being the "genetic trash": Julius is strong, handsome, kind and intelligent, while Vincent is, well, Danny DeVito.

The two meet when they're both 35 and Julius bails Vincent out of jail. Vincent doesn't warm up to Julius right away, but he soon does.

Vincent steals a car that happens to have a secret prototype fuel injector worth five million dollars in the trunk. He is going to drive to Houston to sell it for money he owes to loan sharks, but Julius finds out that their mother is really alive and they might be able to find her, and the drive to Houston soon turns into a road trip with Vincent, Julius, Vincent's girlfriend Linda and Linda's sister Marnie. They are pursued by Webster, the criminal responsible for transporting the fuel injector.

News broke in March of 2012 that a sequel called Triplets was planned, with Eddie Murphy as the third brother, triggering a collective "What?" from the entire world. The sequel has languished in Development Hell until 2021. Shooting was originally scheduled to begin in Boston in January 2022 with Reitman returning to direct with Schwarzenegger and DeVito reprising their roles and Murphy having been replaced with Tracy Morgan. However, Reitman's death in February 2022 left the fate of the project uncertain with Schwarzenegger confirming in the following year that the sequel was scrapped by Reitman's son Jason, who wasn't keen on continuing his dad's work on it.

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This film provides examples of:

• Actor Allusion:
  • Julius tells Dr. Traven that if he's lying, "I'll be back".
  • Another little reference to Arnold's ongoing rivalry with Sylvester Stallone is made, when Julius — completely innocent of pop culture and the seedier side of life — walks by a Rambo poster after coming to L.A.; puzzled, he studies the poster for a bit, then checks his own bicep and scoffs as if to say, "that guy doesn't have muscles, I have muscles".
• Affably Evil: Beetroot is engaged in corporate espionage and theft, and doesn't care who might get hurt in the process of stealing a competitor's prototype. He's also surprisingly charming and WILL honor a deal if he gets what he wants. Too bad for him Webster doesn't share his generosity.
• Appeal to Force: Julius tries to talk reason to Burt McClane while he is attacking Vincent. Burt's response is to grab a fire axe and swing it at them.
  Julius: You have no respect for logic.
  Vincent: But he's got an axe!
• Badass Adorable: Julius is an interesting example; he is adorable not because of his appearance, but because of his gentle, innocent and kind-hearted personality.
• Babies Ever After: At the end, lo and behold, the twins have married the sisters and have each had... twins.
• Bait-and-Switch: In the last scene, when the mother notes "I just can't get over how alike they are", the camera cuts to Julius and Vincent but then pans down to the twin babies in the buggies.
• Bedroom Adultery Scene: Vincent's introductory scene.
• Berserk Button: Vincent finds out the hard way that calling Burt Klane a "blimp" isn't the smartest thing to do.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Julius is kind, intelligent, thoughtful, and considerate. He's also pure muscle and trained in martial arts, and you threaten his family at your absolute peril.
• Big Brother Instinct: Julius develops this immediately.
• Big Guy, Little Guy: And it's rather hard to get them mixed up.
• Blatant Lies: Dr. Mitchell Traven denied any knowledge of the program. ("I don't know who you are, and I don't know what you're talking about!") This pissed Julius off.
• Bond One-Liner: During the final confrontation, once the chains finally finish piling up on the villain, Vincent looks in mild shock before delivering a classic:
  Vincent: Holy schmoly... Now there's a guy with a lot on his mind.
• Bullying a Dragon: The engineers who stole the fuel injection system and the Clane Brothers all decide to insult/threaten Webster. They all learn the error of their ways, courtesy of his silenced automatic pistol (nonlethally for the brothers, who get off "easy" when Webster kneecaps them).
• But I Read a Book About It: Julius knew all about driving from reading about it, and having read the car's manual, he knew he could shut off the alarm by lifting it up from the back, thereby tricking it into thinking it was being towed. Of course it only worked because of his extraordinary strength.
• Car Skiing: Julius does one of these completely by accident his first time driving a car.
  Julius: Maybe I can teach you that sometime.
  Vincent: Julius, let me give you a little advice: here in America, nobody likes a smartass.
• Cassandra Truth: No one ever believes that Vincent and Julius are twins. Vincent doesn't even believe it until about halfway through the film.
• Coat Over the Shoulder: Vincent gets them matching sets of cool white suits. They simultaneously flip their jackets, with Julius's jacket floating over Vincent.
• Conscience Makes You Go Back: Julius makes Vincent grow a conscience, which irritates Vincent to no end.
  Julius: Why did you come back?
  Vincent: Why? I'll tell you why, it's because I have a disease called a conscience.
  Julius: No one said doing the right thing was easy.
  Vincent: "No one said doing the right thing was easy."
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Julius' fight with the Klane heavy in Vincent's office. Later he easily dispatches four of them in the nightclub.
• The Cynic: Vincent has had one too many disappointments in his life to believe in concepts like love, kindness and hope.
• Dating What Sister Hates: Marnie doesn't like her sister Linda going out with Vincent. However, she eventually backs off upon meeting Vincent's twin Julius.
• Designer Babies: Julius and Vincent are the results of a secret experiment carried out at a U.S. Government genetics laboratory to produce the perfect child. To the surprise of the scientists, the embryo split and twins were born. One twin, Julius, is seemingly "perfect", exhibiting all the traits the scientists were hoping to achieve, while the other, Vincent, is much more "average", to the scientists' dismay.
  Mitchell Traven: The embryo did split in two, but it didn't split equally. All the purity and strength went into Julius. All the crap that was left over went into what you see in the mirror every morning.
• Double In-Law Marriage: The end has the twins marrying sisters.
• Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: The movie pretty much glosses over the fact that one of the nuns at the orphanage had sexual relations with Vincent when he was only a child. In fact, it kinda implies Vincent was responsible.
• Dr. Jerk: Dr. Mitchell Traven at best, bordering on Morally Ambiguous Doctorate. It's not possible to justify breaking up a family the way he did, no matter what his reasons for it. Not to mention how he treats Vincent, considering the way he treats him as the result of leftover genetic "crap" from the experiment.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Vincent, at least when he finds out he was lied to when told he was a Son of a Whore. Of course, by the time he and his true mother meet, he's not really that bad anymore.
• Expecting Someone Taller: When Julius visits Vincent in jail, his reaction eyeing on a tall burly man walking by before Vincent sat across him and thought he got the wrong person.
• Faux Affably Evil: Webster puts on a great front of being an easygoing, professional guy. It's just a cover for his psychotic obsession with remaining anonymous, and he's perfectly willing to kill anyone who even slightly threatens his reputation.
• Flat "What": Vincent's reaction when Julius told him he's his brother.
• Genius Bruiser: Julius. He was created to be the pinnacle of physical and mental perfection and as such, he is outstanding in numerous academic subjects and has Arnie's incredible body and strength.
• Genius Ditz: Julius is an expert in various intellectual fields but struggles with interactions in regular society due to his upbringing.
• Gentle Giant: Keep in mind that this role was very much Playing Against Type for Arnie at first, since he was then-known either as an action hero or The Terminator.
• The Ghost: Vincent's friend Sammy, who gets mentioned by him as the guy who owns the car that was driven by McKinley's associates but never appears in person.
• Good Feels Good: At the end, Julius tells Vincent how proud he is of him for returning McKinley's money (well, most of it); Vincent says, for perhaps the first time in his life, that he genuinely feels proud of himself.
  Julius: Now doesn't it feel good to be one of the good guys for a change?
  Vincent: (laughing) It feels great to be a good guy!
• Grand Romantic Gesture: Vincent has his love interest's room decorated with flowers. She is floored.
• The Grovel: Towards the end during his Grand Romantic Gesture, Vincent is on his knees begging his love interest for forgiveness. It works.
• Had to Be Sharp: Vincent feels despondent after Dr. Traven tells him he is "genetic trash" because they gave all the good genes to Julius. His long-lost brother manages to raise his spirits by pointing out that it's not a fair comparison: Julius had all the advantages in life, not just with his genes, but also being raised in an island commune by a group of scientists who always supported him and gave him everything he needed to succeed. Meanwhile, Vincent was dropped off at an orphanage and was never given anything and had to fight for everything he has. Julius admits that Vincent is not just his brother, but a role model to him.
• Hawaiian-Shirted Tourist: The two couriers who deliver the car to the garage try to pass themselves off as tourists by wearing Hawaiian shirts.
• Hereditary Twinhood: At the end, the twin brothers have married twin sisters, and each couple has twin babies.
• Hero Stole My Bike: Reconstructed. Julius jacks a convertible with buffalo horns on the hood in Twins, but later mentions that he returned it.
• Hood Hornament: Julius jacks a convertible with buffalo horns on the hood.
• Hot for Teacher: As a young boy, Vincent had the hots for Sister Maria, one of the nuns who was his biology teacher at the orphanage where he grew up. Sister Maria eventually lost her job after sleeping with Vincent (although the movie wants us to believe that Vincent seduced her, even though he was a child at the time) before he ran away.
• Hypocrite: Vincent accuses Linda of accompanying him on the journey because her interests were only financial, even though five million dollars is exactly what motivated his road trip in the first place. Though he's likely just venting his anger on the news of his mother's supposed death.
• Informed Ability: Some of Julius' abilities, like his superior skill at math. Justified in that only some of his skills are relevant to the plot, and usually only for a single scene each.
• In the Blood: Done in a more controlled and planned manner than usual. Dr. Traven and his team took sperm from men who excelled in all fields — a Nobel Prize-winning scientist, a bodybuilder etc. so they could create someone who was literally a master at everything. The embryo's split into a "good" twin and a "bad" twin in Mary-Ann's womb, however, was not planned for.
• Jerkass: Mitchell Traven. He treats Vincent like crap, because his unexpected birth was the reason the program was shut down. Also because of it, he told Mary Ann, their birth mother, that her child died at birth. As well as already pre-judging how Vincent would grow up.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Vincent, after some Character Development.
• Kavorka Man: Vincent. Prior to meeting Julius, he doesn't have many redeeming features but nevertheless seems to have had no trouble attracting women.
• Kindhearted Cat Lover: An early sign that Vincent isn't a total slimeball is the care and affection he has for his cat.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Ultmately everyone gets what they deserve, for good or ill. The twins forge a permanent bond, marry a pair of good-looking, good-hearted women and each gets a set of twins of their own. Mary Ann, having long believed her only son died at birth, discovers she actually has two and gets the chance to reconnect with them. Meanwhile Webster, a Faux Affably Evil murdering bastard who killed the two men who hired him and offed Beatroot, gets violently crushed by a chain-hook and a long length of metal chains. Dr. Traven, who isn't a villain but still acted like a bitter old crank and a jackass, gets sucker-punched for his own bad deeds (because at least he didn't kill anyone).
• Leave No Witnesses: Webster has this as a very important part of his personal code, and is all the more psychotic for it — not even the people he works for are safe. The only reason he spares Burt and Bob Klane's lives, choosing to kneecap them instead, is because they've made it clear they have no idea who he is.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: During the brawl with the Klanes, Vincent finally stands up for himself, elbowing Morris Klane in the balls before smashing a guitar over his head.
• Loan Shark: Vincent is hounded by the family of loan sharks almost every other scene. Played for Laughs, as they are continuously injured and quite non-threatening.
• Long-Lost Relative: Julius and Vincent were Separated at Birth. Vincent was placed in an orphanage in Los Angeles, Julius was taken to a South Pacific island and raised by Professor Werner. Each twin is unaware of the other's existence until Vincent learns of his twin brother on his 35th birthday.
• Mama Bear: Mary Ann, after she learns about Dr. Traven's little white lie. "You stole my family... you lying son of a BITCH!!"
• Manchild: Julius has a lot of child-like innocence due to spending his whole life on an island.
• Martial Pacifist: Julius has been trained in karate since he was a boy. He just doesn't learn to enjoy violence until he meets Vincent.
• Missing Mom: Julius was informed that his mother died in childbirth. Vincent believed his mother abandoned him.
• Mistaken Identity: When they first meet, Vincent thinks Julius is a debt collector working for the Klane brothers.
• Mix-and-Match Man: Julius and Vincent are Designer Babies with combined DNA from six athletic and scholarly fathers. Vincent lost out in the process though.
• The Morality/Mortality Equation: Beetroot's associates get killed just for seeing Webster's face, even though as far as the audience is aware they're just a couple of guys doing their job. Beetroot himself suffers the same fate near the end, for the exact same reasons.
• Ms. Fanservice: Marnie, who is nearly always seen wearing tight clothing to show off her figure, greets Julius in the car with a gorgeous moment of Show Some Leg, and eventually seduces him in a tiny nightdress with nothing on underneath. Julius is also enraptured by the beautiful blonde stewardess on his flight who certainly qualifies for the Buxom Beauty Standard.
• Nature vs. Nurture: Because of the unexpected birth of twins, the experiment was ended and the mother/children split up. Julius ended up with one of the scientists who genuinely raised the boy to be a genius bodybuilder ("the Good") in an isolated environment void of cultural distractions. Vincent was left abandoned to an orphanage, without any mentor or guidance to grow up, and learned to cheat and lie his way through life ("the Bad") while living a hedonistic unhealthy lifestyle. The argument would be how much did genetics already establish which twin was Good or Bad, and how much did they grew up the way they grew up? Lampshaded by Julius, who realizes he had the more coddled childhood and condemns Dr. Traven for pre-judging Vincent to a harsher life.
  "I was taken to a beautiful island, protected, educated, loved, given every opportunity to grow, to dream, to create. But you had none of that. You had nobody. Nobody to love you, nobody to trust you, nobody to encourage you. All life taught you was that the only person you could count on was yourself."
• Nice Guy: Julius. He always believes the best in people, and always resorts to violence last.
• Noble Demon: Beetroot honors the deal he made with Vincent, even though he realizes by then that Vincent obviously got ahold of it by accident, and probably doesn't even "know what the hell this thing is"; after explaining what it is, he leaves the promised payment and leaves with the goods. Unfortunately for Beetroot and his assistant, Webster isn't noble at all, gunning them down in cold blood just before Julius arrives, leading to the climax.
• Nun Too Holy: Vincent reveals that he lost his virginity to a nun. While it is implied that he seduced her, there's also the fact that he was twelve.
• Oh, Crap!: Vincent's celebration of getting his money is cut short when he hears gunshots and Beetroot's car crashing.
• Overly Long Gag: The chain (see above).
• Pet the Dog:
  • Or cat in this case. Vincent, despite being a moneygrubbing lech until he meets Julius, is very kind and loving towards his pet cat, ironically named Julius.
  • Likewise he's very kind to his secretary, finding a gentle way to let her know that he can't afford to keep her after most of his business is repossessed and pretends to love the birthday present she got him. He even hires her back when he and Julius start their own firm.
  • Dr. Werner had hoped Julius would stay with him after learning he had a twin, but Julius was insistent on leaving to find his twin brother, so Werner let him leave. That's as nice as he gets and it's all downhill from there. Although Werner does reunite with Julius at the end.
• Polar Opposite Twins: Aside from the visibly obvious, Vincent is a never-do-well conman who has been doing awful things since he was young enough to run like hell (away from the orphanage he grew up in, after "seducing" one of the nuns), while Julius is a Wide-Eyed Idealist Gentle Giant.
• Psycho for Hire: Webster. He kills anyone he meets in person so they can't identify him, even if that person is the one who hired him.
• Raised by Dudes: Arnold's character is raised by scientists (with one of them being more of a father figure to Julius) while his biological parents (all seven of them) are excluded. When he ventures into normal society, he is very much a Fish out of Water.
• Ready for Lovemaking: Marnie puts herself out there for Julius by crawling on his bed (as he's preparing to sleep on the floor) and purposefully showing she's not wearing anything under her negligee.
• Rule #1: The rules of a crisis situation:
  Rule 1: Don't move too soon.
  Rule 2: If you choose to bluff, you must be prepared to have your bluff called.
  Rule 3: Duck.
• Saw It in a Movie Once: Vincent is stealing a car, but doesn't want newly-found twin, Julius, who just bailed him out of jail, to know how bad a guy he is, so he tells him he's borrowing it from a friend, but that the friend forgot to leave the key in the wheel well. He grabs a hanger to jimmy the lock, telling Julius, "I saw this in a movie once." When it works on the first try, he says, "Whadda ya know, beginner's luck."
• Separated at Birth: Natch. All because of Dr. Traven.
• Smoking Hot Sex: Marnie lights up after sleeping with Julius.
• Something Else Also Rises: When Marnie falls asleep on Julius, it causes his bicep to bulge to the point where it rips his shirt.
• Stupid Evil: Webster's rule of killing anybody who ever sees his face, even if that someone is his employer, is ridiculous to the extreme. It definitely comes to bite him in the end because he explains he's going to do it to Vincent and Julius, even after they give him the money, giving them a few seconds to look around the room and notice a way to strike back, a prime example of Bond Villain Stupidity.
• Superior Twin Teamwork: After some initial friction, Julius and Vincent work together extremely well. They learn to read each other's body language and pick up non-verbal cues, appear to have Twin Telepathy going on, and fight effectively by double-teaming opponents. Julius is educated and strong, but naive and lacking in street smarts. Vincent has little formal education and is short and chubby, but he has street smarts in spades and is not naive. At the end of the film, they're running a successful firm together.
• Take That!: A small jab is made at Rambo III early in the movie when Julius makes a short stop at the Chinese Theatre and sees a poster for the movie. He compares his muscles to Rambo, only to shrug it off.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Of course Vincent was kind of a jerkass his whole life, but became a bigger jerkass after he was told their mother died and took it out on Linda and Julius.
  • He was also told that he wasn't planned and was made out of everything they didn't want in Julius. That certainly didn't do much for his mood.
  • Also worth remembering: Vincent spent most of his life thinking he was abandoned in motherhood, clearly held a grudge, it was revealed that he was considered "crap" by the people who raised him, one of them horribly mocking him for it, was obviously devastated and After that he is convinced by Julius to find his mother and finally have a family, only to discover that she is dead. Were it not for a movie, Vincent might have had a real meltdown.
• Twins Are Special: Justified as Julius and Vincent are the products of genetic experimentation to produce the perfect child by fertilizing a single ovum with the sperm of 6 different men, Julius getting all of the desired genes and Vincent getting all of the leftovers. This technically makes Vincent Julius's twin and clone all at once! They experience both Twin Telepathy and Synchronization.
• Twin Telepathy: Naturally. The Twins are even in constant synchronization, much to Vincent's initial annoyance. Vincent named his first cat Julius, and Julius named his first computer Vincent. When either brother is hurt, both feel pain. Vincent actually gives up the five-million-dollar payoff in an attempt to rescue Julius he's pretty sure won't work specifically because Julius has given him a conscience that won't quit nagging him. By the last few scenes, they even know where each other is and copy their movements perfectly.
• Ungrateful Bastard: After Julius pays his bail, Vincent ditches him, thinking he's crazy. Though he does become grateful when Julius saves him from one of the Klane brothers.
• Virgin-Shaming: Julius is revealed to be a virgin, unsurprisingly since he's spent his whole life on a desert island with no women around, and is embarrassed when Vincent teases him about it.
• Whatever Happened to the Mouse?: We never find out if the loan sharks are still after Vincent. Though after getting the reward money, he likely paid them off, or they were arrested at the bar.
  • Al, Vincent's friend at the parking garage, vanishes from the story after Webster extracts Vincent's address from him. Considering how we see Webster deal with pretty much anyone who crosses his path, odds are Al ended up with a bullet in his head.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: Julius, having grown up on an island paradise with no worries or troubles.
• Wins by Doing Absolutely Nothing: Near the beginning, a motorcycle-riding thief tries to steal Julius' suitcase. Julius is so strong that he is able to hold onto the suitcase without even noticing that the man was trying to steal it, which yanks the thief right off his motorcycle. Julius actually thinks the man got caught on his suitcase and unironically tries to give him medical assistance while apologizing profusely.

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