A True Masterpiece

Rating: 9/10 (5 June 2003)

Director Terry Gilliam and writer David Peoples, both talented in their own right, have collaborated to create the best movie of their careers. Twelve Monkeys is a time travel story mixed with an apocalyptic air about a killer virus and a man from the future who must go back in time to stop it. But the movie is also about mental illness, it's about what constitutes reality & non-reality, and it's about how small mistakes of identity or incorrect assumptions can alter the course of history.
Weaving a multi-textured and highly nuanced script from Peoples, Gilliam invents a movie that stands up to repeated viewings and seems to reveal more layers of itself each time it's watched. Performances from Bruce Willis as the time traveler, Cole, and especially Brad Pitt as Jeffrey Gomes, the mentally disturbed son of a viral scientist, head up a cast of sturdy, if somewhat over the top, performances (keep in mind that this is Terry Gilliam, and over the top is par for the course).
Any who dismiss Twelve Monkeys as a silly exercise in filmmaking or a confusing movie about time travel have missed the point. It is both of those...but it is made that way intentionally and used as a thin commercial hook to disguise a deep and meaningful film, something American audiences tend to shy away from.
High credit to Peoples and Gilliam. Twelve Monkeys is a must-see and an experience the viewer not easily forget.