Twins (1988 film)

Twins is a 1988 American comedy film produced and directed by Ivan Reitman about unlikely twins (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito) who were separated at birth. The core of the film is the relationship between DeVito's streetwise character and Schwarzenegger's intellectual persona. The original music score was composed by Georges Delerue and Randy Edelman (Edelman would score three more films for the director, whereas this was Delerue's only work for him).

The film was a commercial success, earning $11 million on its opening weekend, and going on to gross $216 million worldwide. Schwarzenegger and DeVito rather than taking their usual salary for the film, both agreed with the studio to take 20% of the film's box office, which resulted in them receiving the biggest paychecks of their movie careers.

Plot

Julius Benedict (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and Vincent Benedict (Danny DeVito) are fraternal twins, the results of a secret experiment carried out at a genetics laboratory to produce the perfect child. To the surprise of the scientists, the embryo split and twins were born. The mother, Mary Ann Benedict, was told that Julius died at birth, and not told about Vincent at all. Julius was informed that his mother died in childbirth. Vincent believed his mother abandoned him. Each twin is unaware of the other's existence.

Twins (The Matrix)

The Twins (played by Neil and Adrian Rayment) are fictional characters in the 2003 film The Matrix Reloaded. They are the henchmen of the Merovingian who can become translucent and move through solid objects, although believed to be an old version of the agents.

They are also the 'ghosts' the Oracle explains while talking to Neo before the 'Burly Brawl'. In other words, their abilities as programs (becoming translucent and moving through objects) were still usable in exile.

Story

The Twins are first seen with the Merovingian smoking a hookah in his restaurant in The Matrix Reloaded. They smirk at the fact that neither Trinity, nor Morpheus, nor Neo appear to have the same intellect as does the Merovingian. The Twins rarely speak, but when they do so, it is with a slow paced English accent, and when one speaks to the other, they usually say "we", as opposed to "I".

Later, when Morpheus and crew free the Keymaker, the Merovingian sends the Twins to kill the 'Redpills' and recapture the Keymaker. They encounter Morpheus and Trinity in a parking garage and quickly demonstrate both their skill in hand-to-hand combat (using a straight razor) and their ability to become incorporeal. The latter power not only allows bullets to pass harmlessly through them but also heals injuries that they sustain while in corporeal form. Morpheus, Trinity, and the Keymaker flee in a car, but they are pursued first by the Twins, then by police and by agents.

Twins in mythology

Twins appear in the mythologies of many cultures around the world. In some they are seen as ominous and in others they are seen as auspicious. Twins in mythology are often cast as two halves of the same whole, sharing a bond deeper than that of ordinary siblings, or otherwise shown as fierce rivals. Twins can represents some "other" aspect of the Self, a doppelgänger or a shadow. Often the twin is the "evil twin" , or one may be human and one semi-divine. The twin may be a brother, or a soul-mate, such as the "civilized" Gilgamesh and the "wild" Enkidu.

Many cultures have mythic or folkloric explanations for how twins are conceived. In Greek mythology, some twins were conceived when a woman slept with both a mortal and a god on the same day. One of her offspring thereafter had godlike qualities, and the other was an ordinary mortal, such as Heracles and his twin brother Iphicles. In several Native American cultures women avoided eating twin fruits like double almonds and bananas because it was thought to increase the likelihood of twins. In other cultures, twins were attributed to superior virility of the father.