Dystopia gone Monty Python? Yes, half way.

Rating: 8/10 (26 May 2010)

Twelve Monkeys (1995)
The best parts of this movie are so farcical, horrifying, inventive, or lyrical, it's hard to swallow the worst parts, which are unbelievable when belief is required, and sentimental when sentiment is cheap.
You can see a Monty Python influence in director Terry Gilliam's style, or vision, in parts of the movie, and in other parts it more hard edge dystopia. Both work well. The lead actors (Brad Pitt in a twitchy role and Bruce Willis in a confused tough guy role) are right on, and they make the movie have heart where it might have just been a great production designer's extravaganza. Lead female Madeleine Stowe plays the slightly too-cocky psychiatrist well, getting in the middle of an awful lot of madness.
The movie is terrifying in its vision of a hellish, dark, poisoned future, and yet it's comic and silly enough to not be a downer movie. The overtly clever main scene which is shown to us with a little too much cinematic control (we sense a movie trick of editing, and slow-mo, right off the bat) is key to the plot, but sort of a thin bit of the larger plot. But following the main characters through their race against time, almost literally, is totally absorbing. There are many scenes to remember, and the whole experience is just tongue-in-cheek enough to forgive the movie makers their glitches and foibles.
Watch it. It's a great ride.