What could have been a bizarre neo-"Brazil" mess of a plot turns out to be a spellbinding and intelligent Sci-fi thriller, maybe Gilliam's masterpiece...

Rating: 9/10 (31 December 2016)

"Twelve Monkeys" is a Terry Gilliam movie, so you know you'll feel lucky if you gather half of the plot at the end of the film.
It is also a film whose story-line relies on time travels, swinging back and forth between the 90s urban hell and a dystopian future where humanity has been almost wiped from the surface of the Earth. The cinematography is so bleak and gritty that the future and the present (the past too) are like blue and red M&M's. But ever since "Brazil", we know Gilliam has an inclination toward urban nightmares and dehumanizing technology.
"Twelve Monkeys" also centers on a protagonist named James Cole, played by Bruce Willis, a man who is so tormented that he can't even tell if he's really living his own reality. And in this exhausting ride, he meets a young fanatic poor man's prophet, played by Brad Pitt, and in his disjointed mambo jumbo, tries to grab some bits of truths that can help him to find shadows of truth in this existential mess.
So, basically, we have a movie made by the most anarchic and extravagant movie director (and he's quite polarizing on that level), playing on different time-lines and operating a real ping pong game of a narrative, and with psychological confusion to spice up an already complex plot. Yet, despite all these elements, this is perhaps the closest to a coherent and consistent plot I ever encountered in a Gilliam film. This is the film that could have been a bizarre nonsense, but it works, and the reason is quite simple: the film had a story, and much more, a compelling one.
I'm not trying to make a lecture about screen writing, but for all its complexity, the film makes no secret about the set-up and the primal mission: humanity has been wiped out by a mysterious plague (five billions is quite a death toll) and people have been forced to live under the ground while animals have taken over the Earth. And as a way to emphasize the cataclysmic aspect of humanity's future, even time travels won't prevent the plague from happening, this is no "Back to the Future", the film is set in a frozen time-line and what Cole can only do is bring samples or information about the original form of the virus so the scientists who sent him can study it in his present.
This is crucial because the film cleverly toys with its own premise: things are meant to happen and all humans can do is minimize the consequences. But there's a feeling of impending doom governing the script and while we try to believe in the 'happy ending', we know that whatever Cole will try to do, he'll only lead himself to what is meant to happen. The movie mentions the Cassandra's syndrome inherent to people who knows about the tragedy bound to happen but can't do anything to prevent it because no one would listen, this is Cole's tragedy, something in the same vein than Oedipus. There's a flashback memory scene repeating itself as some muddy leitmotif, it involves a young kid witnessing a murder in an airport, a blonde woman and man with a ponytail. Although we suspect what is going on, the climax doesn't lose any of its impact.
We're prepared to the finale, there's even a scene where the film "Vertigo" is screened on the theater and Cole knows this is his story in a nutshell, some dreamy vision and obsession with a girl, and a story that will keep repeating itself. That's the core of "Twelve Monkeys", it's a nightmarish time loop where a man is entrapped and where, during this short entrapment, he'll escape from his condition with a scientist played by Madeleine Stowe. And you've got to love the irony: just when he feels he might be wrong about himself, she's the one believing him. This is the soul of the film, a relationship between a man who couldn't even believe himself, and a woman who could but not to the point that she was able to stop the inevitable.
This is a formidable twist on the eternal obsession of Sci-fi geeks and their "what if" scenarios, you know: what if someone could go back in the past and kill Hitler or prevent September 11 from happening. "Twelve Monkeys", although relying on an improbable premise, perhaps features the most realistic take on time travels.
This is a jigsaw puzzle as a plot with great acting, including Brad Pitt's Oscar-nominated performance that launched his career, proving that he wasn't just some Tom Cruise wannabe, and it all takes a second viewing to reassemble all the pieces and even get some hints of subtle brilliance. This is a real triumph from Gilliam who, for once, didn't indulge to some of his annoying trademarks and didn't punctuate the film with some crazy fights, and for a movie that deals with madness and a hero who suspects some things are made out of his mind, any spectacular intrusion of a dragon or a samurai wouldn't have surprised me.
But the British director restrained himself; he knew he got one hell of a story at hands, so there was no need to wrap it up in another extravagant fantasy. This lucidity made the film, as it is basically "Brazil" with a plot. And whenever someone will tell me that I have no reason to be skeptical over "Brazil"'s reputation, I'll lay the "Twelve Monkeys" card and say that this is at least a film that features the same dystopian future, the same 'world is hell' message, the same maddening confusion, but it makes sense and not just on a psychological level. I was surprised of how emotionally involving it was.
I used to consider "The Fisher King" very highly but I might regard "Twelve Monkeys" as Terry Gilliam's masterpiece.