Gilliam's "Twelve"

Rating: 10/10 (31 January 2007)

It's been a while since I've seen "Twelve Monkeys," but I still remember that it is most definitely one of the best sci-fi movies I've ever seen, perhaps one of the best of the 1990s. "Twelve Monkeys" is a fascinating piece of science fiction, with "elements" thrown into the mix that can only be the work of director Terry Gilliam. The script by David Webb Peoples and Janet Peoples, inspired by the original French film "La Jette" by Chris Marker, tells the tale of a future planet Earth in the year 2035, after a deadly virus has decimated mankind and humans are forced to live underground. Of course, there are criminal elements, and one of these outcasts, James Cole (Bruce Willis), is offered a chance at a clean slate if he volunteers for a mission that is literally out-of-this-world: travel back in time to the year 1996 to gather up information on the virus so scientists in the future can develop a cure. But a mishap occurs and he's sent too far back to the year 1990. Once there, he is hospitalized as insane and meets a wacky fellow inmate named Jeffrey Goines (Brad Pitt) and is cared for by a disbelieving doctor (Madeleine Stowe), who eventually grows to realize Cole's telling the truth. Cole is bounced back and forth between the future and the past so much that he eventually grows disillusioned by his own perception of reality, unsure what time he's in or where. Like Cole's ordeal, the film "Twelve Monkeys" packs a mental punch; we too become unsure of our surroundings and great effort was made by the filmmakers to create such confusion. The performances are pretty astounding, especially from Willis (whose "acting" ranks as some of his finest) and Pitt, who's an absolute blast and provides some gallows humor, but to be perfectly clear he's totally loony, and may or may not be linked to the group of young, radical animal-rights activists responsible for the unleashing of the virus. Gilliam's imagination again runs rampant in another "future" tale, like his earlier "Brazil" (1985). "Twelve Monkeys," to be sure, is one wild trip that is definitely worth taking.
10/10