12 Monkeys

Running Time: 127 minutes.

Media: DVD.

This is by far one of the weirdest films out... one of the few time-travel films that still requires me to view over and over again just to make some semblance of sense of it.

12 Monkeys is one of the types of movies that requires maybe one or two viewings to finally get a hang of what's going on. I say this as it seems the film kinda combines a number of time frames and as a result one needs to focus carefully on where and where Bruce Willis' character, James Cole is in... Madeline Stowe plays a somewhat paranoid psychiatrist, Kathryn Railly who gets embroiled with James' time travel adventures, much against her want... Add the zany antics of Brad Pitt as a fanatical animal rights activist and mental patient and you have all the chemistry you need to get a film that kinda loses the audience... And the plot...

To give you a quick run-down on the basic premise of the film - a super duper virus has been released back in 1996, resulting in deaths of pandemic proportions. As a result, the human race has been forced to venture underground to survive... Fast toward some forty, maybe fifty years onwards and the world as we know it seems to have taken on a cross between steampunk, UFC fighting stadiums and New York sewers... James Cole has been given the task to travel back in time, find out what caused the virus and stop it from ever spreading to begin with... James keeps having these dreams of witnessing a guy get shot at an airport as a child, which are apparently repressed childhood memories...

Terry Gilliam directs this film, which kinda explains the costume and stage design for the post-apocalyptic world, and possibly the scripting of Brad Pitt's lines... The film had my head scratching, wondering why the world supposedly seemed to regress in terms of technology, fashion and I'd have to add, intellect...

The film is great in the way it twists and turns, eventually closing the loop in the end... There are a few areas that seemed a bit on the fake side, like the color in David Morse's hair in the film. I guess, the delivery of Stowe's performance seemed a little unbelievable as well... However, there is some light at the end of the tunnel; what with Brad Pitt's performance which resulted in Pitt being nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, and he also won a Golden Globe for his role in the film. Real comic geeks may recognize one of Kathryn Railly's colleagues as being played by Frank Gorshin, who played the role of the Riddler in the 1960's TV series of Batman.

Would I watch this film again? Yes, though not terribly soon... Although it's a great film, the movie seems to get caught up in itself so much, the audience is left wondering what the hell is happening, and you find yourself a little cheated in the end, especially with not having seen the ending in your mind sooner... Bear in mind, this movie is a re-write of the French film La Jetée, a film made in 1962, of which I've yet to see, but will in the near future... 12 Monkeys borrows a number of components from its predecessor and makes it a worthy film, even though it does go over the top at times... I'm giving this film four stars as a result.