A post-pandemic psychological pretzel starring Bruce Willis, Madeleine Stowe and Brad Pitt.

Rating: 10/10 (16 October 2005)

This is one of my favorite movies. I saw it on the big screen twice and about 50 times on DVD. Each time, my appreciation for the script, editing, direction and acting continues to grow.
It is an amazing drama, rich in layers and dark humor.
On the big screen, the story was so overlaid with complexity that I missed it entirely. I went back the second time to find clues to the storyline. The post-apocalyptic vision and Cole's psychological conundrum are so entwined with time travel that the story cannot be evident on the first viewing. It helps to enter the world a few times to wear the skin of the main character.
Gilliam has undertaken to tell an amazing story, but he asks his viewer to be a partner in the telling. His Monty Python sketches were that way, too, with the humor lying somewhere beneath the surface, inviting you to go down the rabbit hole with Alice.
On the big screen, I was entertained by Brad Pitt, who is sometimes hilarious, but his antics caused me to overlook Bruce Willis, who plays the perfectly sane straight man forced to question his own sanity in a perplexing situation. Even without the problem of a world-killing pandemic, all of us should be able to identify with the problem of the central character. James Cole's psychological overlay adds a lot to the telling of the story.
In lesser hands, 12 Monkeys dystopian vision would be just another piece of pulp science fiction. The psychological dimension enriches the deeper mysteries and gives the film "legs."
Today's headlines warn of an impending world-wide pandemic. England is preparing for 50,000 fatalities, and most other countries are groping for some way to head off a major world-wide catastrophe. In light of our reality, 12 Monkeys' post- apocalyptic vision strikes a cord each time I see it.
If we are tiptoeing along a similar precipice, we should get it right... we don't have the luxury of time travel to fix the problem.