12 Monkeys

There is a story (possibly apocryphal) about an exchange between Bruce Willis and Terry Gilliam at the start of Twelve Monkeys. Gilliam (allegedly) produced a long list (think about the aircraft one from the Fifth Element) and handed it to Butch Bruce. It was entitled "Things Bruce Willis Does When He Acts". It ended with a simple message saying: "please don't do any of the above in my movie".

There is a fact about this movie (definitely true). Gilliam didn't have a hand in the writing.

I would contend that these two factors played a huge role in creating the extraordinary (if not commercial) success that is The Twelve Monkeys.

Visually, the Twelve Monkeys is all that we have rightly come to expect from a Gilliam film. It is also full of Gilliamesque surrealism and general (but magnificent) strangeness. Gilliam delights in wrong-footing his audience. Although the ending of the Twelve Monkeys will surprise no one who has sat through the first real, Gilliam borrows heavily from Kafka in the clockwork, bureaucratic relentless movement of the characters towards their fate. It is this journey, and the character developments they undergo, which unsettles.

I love Gilliam films (Brazil, in particular). But they do all tend to suffer from the same weakness. He seems to have so many ideas, and so much enthusiasm, that his films almost invariably end up as a tangled mess (Brazil, in particular). I still maintain that Brazil is Gilliam's tour de force, but there's no denying that The Twelve Monkey's is a breath of fresh air in the tight-plotting department. Style, substance and form seem to merge in a way not usually seen from the ex-Python.

Whatever the truth of the rumour above, Gilliam also manages to get a first rate (and very atypical) performance out of the bald one. Bruce is excellent in this film, as are all the cast, particularly a suitably bonkers - and very scary - Brad Pitt.

It's been over a decade since this film was released. When I watched it again, I realised that it hadn't really aged. I had changed, of course. And this made me look at the film with fresh eyes. This seems to me to be a fitting tribute to a film that, partly at least, is about reflections in mirrors, altered perspectives and the absurd one-way journey through time that we all make. A first rate film. 8/10.

Normally I try to avoid Sci-Fi movies as much as I can, because this just isn't a genre that really appeals to me. Light sabers, UFO's, aliens, time traveling... most of the time it's nothing for me. However, there is one movie in the genre that I'll always give a place in my list of top movies and that's this "Twelve Monkeys" I remember to be completely blown away by it the first time, but even now, after having it seen several times already, I'm still one of its biggest fans. Every time I see it, this movie seems to get better and better.

Somewhere in the distant future all people live underground because an unknown and lethal virus wiped out five billion people in 1996, leaving only 1 percent of the population alive. James Cole is one of them. He's a prisoner who lives in a small cage and who is chosen as a 'volunteer' to be sent back to in time to gather information about the origin of the epidemic. They believe it was spread by a mysterious group called 'The Twelve Monkeys' and need the virus before it mutated, so that scientists can study it. But their time traveling machine doesn't work perfectly yet and he is accidentally sent to 1990, where he meets Dr. Kathryn Railly, a psychiatrist, and Jeffrey Goines, the insane son of a famous scientist and virus expert...

What I like so much about this movie is the fact that it is never clear whether all what you are seeing is real or not. Is this just an illusion, created in the mind of a mentally ill man or is it real? Does he really come from the future and can he really travel through time? Was the population really wiped out by a virus, released by the army of The Twelve Monkeys? Those are all questions that will leave you wondering from the beginning until the end. If the makers of this movie had chosen to make it all more obvious, I'm sure that I would never have liked it as much as I did now. It's just that mysteriousness that keeps me interested time after time. But that's not the only good thing about this movie of course. The acting is amazing too. Normally I'm not too much a fan of Bruce Willis, but what he did in this movie was just astonishing. Together with Madeleine Stowe and Brad Pitt he should have won several awards for it, because together with the amazing story, they made this movie work so incredibly well.

Even after several viewings, I'm still a huge fan of this movie. Except for this movie, I have only seen one other Terry Gilliam movie and that's "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", which wasn't bad, but didn't really convince me either. However, it's this movie that really makes me look forward to his other work. I give it a 9/10, maybe even a 9.5/10.

Twelve Monkeys is typically Terry Gilliam, loaded with the director's trademark quirky visuals, and, as such, should get right up my nose (I'm not a huge fan of his hallucinatory, surreal style, to say the least). And yet I still love this unusual time travel tale: it's got great performances, with a particularly strong turn from the then up-and-coming Brad Pitt, and Gilliam's chaotic storytelling actually suits the inherent madness of the whole movie. The twisty-turny plot keeps the viewer on their toes throughout, and Gilliam pulls all the threads together neatly for the finale. The occasional moment of visual excess still niggles (the steampunk/trash-heap aesthetic of the future isn't my cup of tea), but on the whole this is definitely one of the director's best films.

Bruce Willis stars as James Cole, a convict from the future who is sent to the past to try and discover the origins of the virus that wiped out most of the world's human population. After a violent altercation with the police of 1990, Cole is sent to an asylum where he meets patient Jeffrey Goines (Pitt), son of a wealthy scientist (played by Christopher Plummer), and quite possibly plants the seeds of mankind's destruction in the lunatic's mind. Together with his psychiatrist Kathryn Railly (Madeleine Stowe), Cole tries to prevent the disaster from occurring.

At times, it seems as though Gilliam has only the slightest command of proceedings, and the film demands that the viewer puts in 100% concentration to avoid becoming as lost and confused as Cole himself, who becomes more and more unsure about what is reality and what isn't as the film progresses. Characters ramble, often seemingly incoherently, but what they are saying is, for the most part, intrinsic to the outcome, so pay attention (or have your finger on the rewind button). Those who make the effort will be rewarded by a film that is constantly inventive and frequently clever, and worth at least a few viewings to appreciate it to the fullest.

In 1996, a deadly virus is released by a terrorist group known as The Army of the Twelve Monkeys and wipes out 5 billion people from Earth and the survivors are forced to live underground.

In 2035, the prisoner James Cole (Bruce Willis) is forced to return to 1996 to find the original virus to help the scientists to research the cure to mankind. However, he is mistakenly sent to 1990 and locked up in a mental institution, where he meets the lunatic Jeffrey Goines (Brad Pitt). James Cole unsuccessfully tries to explain his assignment to the doctors, including the psychiatrist Kathryn Railly (Madeleine Stowe) that is responsible for his treatment, and then he tries to escape but is incarcerated in a cell. Out of the blue, he vanishes, in the beginning of the incredible journey of James Cole.

"Twelve Monkeys" (1995) is a sci-fi ahead of the time. The plot has many details that requires the viewer to watch this film more than once to fully understand the story. Watching "Twelve Monkeys" again in 2021 is particularly scary in times of the pandemic Covid. Hope that the history does not follow fiction. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): "Os 12 Macacos" ("The 12 Monkeys")

Note: On 24 February 2025, I saw this film again.

I grew up on Python and have followed Terry Gilliam's subsequent directorial career for more years than I care to remember. Half his output leaves me cold, the other half dazzle me beyond belief. 'Brazil' is his movie that I would rate the highest, but I've come to think that I have unfairly underrated 'Twelve Monkeys'. I have always enjoyed it, but I've only come to realize just how good a movie it really is. Sometimes I think it is even better than 'Brazil'. It's a close pick. Unlike 'Brazil' Gilliam didn't come up with the script. He basically was initially involved as a director for hire. Thankfully the script itself (by David and Janet Peoples) is first rate. On top of that Gilliam manages to stamp his own style and approach on to the material without sliding into complete self-indulgence as he sometimes does. The budget of this movie wasn't anywhere near as large as you would imagine from the impressive results on screen. It looks superb. Gilliam coaxes first rate performances out of Bruce Willis (quite a surprise) and Brad Pitt (not such a surprise, see also 'Johnny Suede' and 'Kalifornia'). Madeline Stowe is also very good, as is Christopher Plummer, and in a small but important role, David Morse. It's difficult to fault this movie. It is a joy to watch, and improves with each viewing. I also highly recommend Chris Marker's 'La Jetee', the short experimental film which inspired 'Twelve Monkeys'. It is also brilliant.