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Product Description
Universal 12 Monkeys - HD-DVD
In this science fiction masterpiece, Cole (Bruce Willis) is sent back in timeto save the human race from a deadly virus that has forced mankind into dank underground communities in the future. Along his travels, he encounters a psychiatrist (Madeleine Stowe) and a mental patient, brilliantly portrayed by Brad Pitt, who may hold the key to the mysterious rogue group, The Army of the 12 Monkeys, thought to be responsible forunleashing the killer disease. Believing he can obtain a pure virus sample in order to find a cure in the future, he is met with one riddle after another that puts him in a race for time.
Inspired by Chris Marker's acclaimed short film La Jet¨¦e (which is included on the DVD Short 2: Dreams), 12 Monkeys combines intricate, intelligent storytelling with the uniquely imaginative vision of director Terry Gilliam. The story opens in the wintry wasteland of the year 2035, where a virulent plague has forced humans to live in a squalid, oppressively regimented underground. Bruce Willis plays a societal outcast who is given the opportunity to erase his criminal record by "volunteering" to time-travel into the past to obtain a pure sample of the deadly virus that will help future scientists to develop a cure. But in bouncing from 1918 to the early and mid-1990s, he undergoes an ordeal that forces him to question his own perceptions of reality. Caught between the dangers of the past and the devastation of the future, he encounters a psychiatrist (Madeleine Stowe) who is initially convinced he's insane, and a wacky mental patient (Brad Pitt in a twitchy Oscar-nominated role) with links to a radical group that may have unleashed the deadly virus. Equal parts mystery, tragedy, psychological thriller, and apocalyptic drama, 12 Monkeys ranks as one of the best science fiction films of the '90s, boosted by Gilliam's visual ingenuity and one of the finest performances of Willis's career. --Jeff Shannon
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Customer Reviews: - Couldn't wait for it to end
I thought for sure I would enjoy this, but I found myself looking at the time and wondering when it would be over. Stowe is good as are the others, but the story just did not engage me....more info - Monkeying Around
It helps to know a little going into this movie because the opening doesn't explain enough to hold you. But be patient. The information overload is softened by arresting visuals and soon enough the situation is clear: a man from the future (Bruce Willis) is sent back in time twice for a sample of the virus that has killed everyone in the present except those living underground. A psychiatrist (Madeline Stowe) who thinks he's crazy in 1990 comes to believe him in 1996, but both are too late to thwart the plague and he is killed by the secret service.
That seems to be the story. This is science fiction, so coherence isn't needed. It's also a Terry Gilliam film, so imagination is. "Twelve Monkeys" has enough invention, flashy acting (Brad Pitt got an Oscar nod) and surface glitter to sustain three movies. Too much of a good thing? Maybe, except that Gilliam here controls his material, not always the case with this director (see his 2005 Grimm brothers fiasco.) He plays his actors to their strengths (Christopher Plummer is Pitt's scientist father) and his camera stays with them, exploring each scene, not missing a trick.
Nor will the attentive viewer. Gilliam's production and lighting designs boggle the mind. An airport sequence with a small boy and strange adults is edited into the movie piecemeal, mystifying as it unfolds but paying off at the end, with its stunning final revelation. By that time, all the unexplained detail and storytelling (expanded from a short French film) may start to make sense. It is difficult to sit through the credits without admiring Gilliam's skill at keeping you guessing for as long as he has....more info - Answering question of sanity vs. madness
The inspiration came from the guy that assaulted CBS anchor Dan Rather and was screaming what's the frequency Kenneth. Also the title of an R.E.M song about the same thing. The person though they were from a different dimension and was admitted to psychatric facility after getting arrested for beating up Dan Rather. He though DR was a person from the dimesnion he though he came from and nneded to know the frequency so he could jam the message constantly being replayed in his head. He was in jail and missed his portal to go back to his dimension. In the 90's the guy killed an NBC technician while trying to get the frequency from him to stop the message in his head. He thought the message was a deterrant to keep him from not coming back to his home dimesnion with the info he was required to get from our dimension. He is now spending the rest of his life in prison. Truth is always stranger than fiction. So the idea of Cole possibly being sane or insane is cetainly one of the main themes because it is loosley based off of a real person who beleives basically the same thing accept different dimension instead of differnt date in time. By the way the movie is incredible very twisted visually and plot wise. ...more info - 12 Monkeys (1995)
Director: Terry Gilliam
Cast: Bruce Willis, Brad Pitt, Madeleine Stowe, Frank Gorshin, Carol Florence, David Morse, Harry O'Toole.
Running Time: 129 minutes
Rated R for violence and language.
Stories about the possibility of a post-apocalyptic future have been around for ages, since the very creation of science-fiction as a genre per se. The fact that today's society is responsible for what may become of the future in the near tomorrow, and that our own abuses and refusals to see what is right before out eyes are at the very center of all of these stories, whether they are good or bad. "12 Monkeys", director Terry Gilliam's take on the excellent "La Jetee" is a hokey, yet extremely dark, sinister, and overwhelmingly entertaining venture into the depths of a future that is severely in doubt. Somewhere in the distant future, all people live underground because an unknown and lethal virus wiped out five billion people in 1996, leaving only one percent of the population alive. James Cole is one of them; 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 12 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 (Madeleine Stowe), a psychiatrist, and Jeffrey Goines (Brad Pitt), the insane son of a famous scientist and virus expert. With Railly at his side, Cole is thrown into a race against time to discover the leader of the Twelve Monkeys and end the epidemic in order to save mankind.
Brad Pitt steals most scenes, filling them with a patented loony, off-the-wall performance that deservedly garnered him an Oscar nomination, while Bruce Willis gives the one of the best performances of his career, not reverting to his heroic cliches and cardboard hero; instead portraying Cole as a simple, poignant, tragic everyman. Equally good is Madeline Stowe as Willis' psychologist, holding her own by injecting her character with both wild energy and strength as she collapses under the weight of what she comes to believe is a false "religion". Paul Buckmaster creates an original, timeless score that punctuates the wild mood swings Willis' character endures. As Willis acts out the questioning of his own sanity, a desire to be what he calls "well", and eventually his acceptance of a patently impossible situation, Buckmaster's score delivers a suitably downbeat punctuation. The music is part of what makes the misery of the situation so tangible. Gilliam's expert, overwhelming, and complex handling of what could have been a routine action/sci-fi film makes "12 Monkeys" a compelling vision of a nightmarish, futuristic landscape. Its rich, well-thought out, intricate storyline along with solid performances from the entire cast and its brooding, bleak cinematography make it a gripping treat of madness....more info - Still relevant even today
This is the movie that made me look at Brad Pitt in a different light. His acting was excellent in this movie. His portrayal of a mental patient had me a believer. The mention of a virus infecting everyone is even more relevant today ie. swine flu, avian virus etc.. Is it so impossible to believe we may not be able to live on the surface of the earth due to man's ravaging of the earth's resources? I still was not able to figure out how he was the little boy and the main characteer, but oh well....more info - A warning about the Special Edition if you order it from Amazon...
I ordered this item and got a Special Edition case with a DVD that didn't contain any extras, only the movie and no commentary either. So I hope if someone is planning to buy this for the extras, I can warn them that you might not get what you ordered and once you open it to determine if you got the Special Edition with extras or just the regular disc with only the movie on it, you will have problems returning it and getting a replacement is out because you could get the same thing.
I bought this because Amazon was having a sale, but I feel cheated. Not by them, but by the company who made this disc. I am going to write them and see if they can't send me the right item for free. I bought this DVD mainly for all the extras it had and now, I have just the movie in a form I didn't want to buy in the first place and upset I can't re-buy it for fear I will just get another only movie disc in a Special Edition box. What false advertising. Amazon should stop carrying this item if it isn't what it says it is, because there might be some disappointed people come Christmastime. ...more info - A movie worth watching!
Twelve Monkeys is a sci-fi approach to the likely scenario that a deadly virus spreads rapidly, endangering mankind and threatening life on Earth. The likelihood of such a phenomenon is presently great indeed (SARS, Bird Flu etc), and hopefully the film will get many people thinking.
Apart from the "back from future" element, the movie is very realistic in its approach, and conveys a much needed message of the dangers facing the world, especially when dealing with viruses (i.e. how fast and easily many of them can spread). Moreover, one realizes how helpless governments would be in stopping or preventing such a disaster if a virus fell into the wrong hands.
Bruce Willis, Brad Pitt, and Medeleine Stowe, whose performances are simply AMAZING, make this movie one of the best of its kind.
The actors' great talent and chemistry clearly shows, thus providing a film that can be watched over and over again.
Resident Evil (Milla Jovovich) is another very good movie dealing with virus-related incidents/threats, though it falls much more under "Horror" than Twelve Monkeys, which is a more "Thriller/Action/Sci-Fi" type of film. Another movie that comes to mind is Outbreak (Dustin Hoffman, Morgan Freeman, Rene Rousseau), which probably provides the most realistic approach of the three to similar virus-related threats to humanity.
In short, Twelve Monkeys is a movie definitely worth watching (it's an eye opener) and one to seriously consider adding to your movie collection (if you haven't already done so)!
...more info - HD-DVD is a revelation
Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys throws a LOT of detail at you almost incessantly. With this HD presentation, you can finally see ALL of those details clearly. Gilliam's love of wide angle lenses make for a wide and slightly distorted visual experience. I applaud Universal on this edition as it is nice and sharp. I catch new things with each new viewing. The sound is also quite a ride....more info - A film fascinating, fun and frustrating
12 Monkeys is a convoluted tale of time travel, insanity, apocalypse, and who-done-it, with some romance thrown in. What I enjoyed most about it was the twisting and ambiguous path it followed, which was fresh and well thought out, to a point.
Bruce Willis plays Cole, a prisoner in a post-apocalyptic future recruited to do some dangerous time-travel work in the past for a group of very odd scientists. The goal of the work only becomes apparent later, and by then there is confusion about whether Cole is really on the mission he thinks he is or is just deluded. Brad Pitt has a major supporting role hamming it up as another who may or may not be insane.
Ultimately, while I don't think the film does full justice to its premises and possibilities, it does well enough to be entertaining and thought provoking. Director Terry Gilliam's surrealism adds much. The acting is very good on the whole, itself rather surreal in some of the supporting roles. There is some violence showing how disturbed Willis's character is, not bad for an R-rated movie. It's definitely worth seeing to judge for yourself what it's really about.
I want to comment on the things you think about after the film is over, to see how well it holds up. I'll have to go into details you may not want to know about if you haven't seen the film yet, thus the spoiler alert. If you'd like to know what my general conclusions are, without any spoilers, just skip to the last couple paragraphs headed "In Sum."
*SPOILER ALERT*
Madness
There are many points designed to suggest that parts of the film are delusions, but they're balanced by points seeming to show the opposite. There is the over-the-top strangeness of the future (the video ball, serenading scientists, etc.), the obvious parallels between the psych ward and the future prison (similar panels of doctors/scientists, the two guards, etc), the voice that calls Cole "Bob" (moving around as if in his head, though it seems to belong to the wino too), the music in the ruined department store (apparently a premonition (or something) of the time Cole is there in 1996), the lion and bear (again paralleled in 1996, unlikely denizens of a wintry abandoned Philadelphia).
But then Cole's disappearances, the French that Cole himself doesn't understand in WWI (yes, it's real French), the photo of Cole from WWI (though nearly impossibly convenient), the WWI bullet, Cole's knowledge of the boy in the well prank, all seem to settle things conclusively against delusion. That is, unless we're to imagine that not only the future but the whole film is delusions, of Cole (or Bob) and/or Railly, in line with her own fears and the comment by the virus culprit (Morse) that Railly might be succumbing to her Cassandra syndrome. Confusing? That's what Gilliam was aiming for.
In a way, the view that the whole film is largely delusion seems the most coherent overall interpretation, in that it can explain away all failures of logic. But it has trouble explaining how good the logic is. The film, strange and muddled as it is, really does seem far too lucid and coherent to be primarily be a string of delusions.
The End, Time Travel
The ending has stirred much debate. The woman sitting next to the culprit on the plane is one of the scientists from the future. She is presumably there to do exactly what Cole said the scientists planned to do, gather a sample of the virus from before it mutated. According to Cole, the scientists didn't send him to change the past, which he says is impossible. He was sent to gather information, which he did. We must assume that the sample is gathered and that this enables humanity in the future to return to the surface of the planet. It doesn't help the 5 billion killed.
That appears to be the basic sense of the ending, but it has its own loose ends. Why was Cole given the gun, if not to try to change the past? (Jose's line that it's too bad they didn't get the information sooner makes no sense to me in the context of time travel.) The scientist introduces herself on the plane saying, "I'm in insurance," which is a great line if she's a backup for Cole, in case he fails to stop the spread of the virus. But that too implies he could have changed the past. Even getting a sample of the virus seems to change the past. Trying to figure out the point of all of this is further complicated by the the fact that we are shown the virus being released by the culprit when it was being inspected at the airport. By the time Cole tried to shoot him it was already too late. This adds to the pathos, and the confusion.
Some views of time travel allow the past (and future) to change. It could work this way. Young Cole goes to the airport, there is no shooting, he survives the virus, and is eventually sent back, where he is shot, witnessed by young Cole, who survives the virus and is eventually sent back, where he remembers the shooting and gets shot (the scene we see near the end of the film). This would allow one more twist in the film, one suspected by some optimistic viewers. Railly, recognizing the boy Cole, would tell the boy to remember that the culprit wasn't the 12 monkeys gang but Dr. Goine's assistant. Then Cole could conceivably grow up and loop back one more time, this time preventing the virus from ever being released, and getting the girl. There is no hint of this, however. Had the filmmakers wanted to hint at the possibility, they easily could have (by having Railly whisper something in the boy Cole's ear, for example).
In Sum
All in all, the film is stimulating and fun but ultimately more frustrating than it might have been. I like a film that provokes thought, but I tend to prefer one that rewards it with additional insights and clarity. That only goes so far here, and then things seem impossible, muddled or otherwise unsatisfying. There is a certain postmodern sensibility that prefers just this kind of lack of clarity and incomplete logic. I don't know if that was intended here or just came about accidentally (I suspect some of each), but if that sensibility is your thing, you should love this film.
The DVD anamorphic video and 5.1 audio quality are fine. There is commentary track with director Gilliam and producer Charles Roven, and a full-length making-of documentary. Both are interesting and worth the time, but don't expect answers to the puzzles the film leaves, other than a hint or two expressed as personal opinion....more info - Warning!! Not a happy ending!
If you are the type that likes happy endings, avoid this movie! Bruce Willis dies and he doesn't save the world, and the journey to this depressing conclusion is no fun at all. It reminded me of Arlington Road, where the terrorist uses the good guy to blow up the building at the end of the movie. Also, in this movie, the repetitive flashbacks to Bruce's airport dream were overdone. By the 3rd time, I was saying "I got it already", and by the 5th or 6th flashback I was ready to throw something at the screen. In the featurette, Terry Gilliam said that he thought he had managed to snooker the major studios into producing a "European art movie". He did, and I hate European art movies. On the other hand, if you like such things, you'll probably like the film. It was well acted....more info - Terry Gilliam At His Finest !
Where to begin ? 12 Monkeys is an exceptional work from acclaimed director Terry Gilliam (Brazil, The Brothers Grimm, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas etc.), a work that challenges the mind in more ones than most people would like.
The film is loosely based on French filmmaker Chris Marker's silent short La Jetee. Heavily inspired by the New Wave films of the 1960's most notably Alphaville, 12 Monkeys is a sort of existential science fiction piece one that deals with time travel, biological terrorism, the health system, and paranoia among other things.
We follow mental patient by the name of James Cole (Bruce Willis) who is sent back in time to the 1990's to try and stop events that will lead to an apocalyptic virus that wipes out more than 90% of the Earth's population. Again I will not spoil this for those who haven't seen it.
From a visual standpoint once again Gilliam proves to be an innovator. He tends to shot at odd angles which create a sense of discomfort for the average viewer, it heightens the sense of somethng not being right, or not normal. Again we are treated to many rather odd bits of technology that seem overly complicated and antiquated, another thing that seems to puzzle many viewers. When the average person thinks of the future they always tend to imagine sleek, beautiful sterile environments but with Gilliam we take a trip back into the Machine Age, back to expressionism.
For those wondering what exactly a man like Bruce Willis does in a science fiction art piece without much action or any one-liners, well...he pulls from his repeated viewings of De Niro in Taxi Driver and creates a very disoriented slightly off, and out of touch main character that at times one cannot tell what his motives truly are. In essence a very odd character that is full of emotion and raises many questions.
See this if you have not, every film student should be in the know about this Gilliam effort.
-Thomas Galasso...more info - Overwrought.
12 Monkeys starring Bruce Willis is a long, dragged-out drama. I wish this film was shorter but the acting is incredible from Willis and Brad Pitt. There is a lot of time travel and strange scenes but people seem to like this movie. This mystery is a mixed bag for me....more info - Review
The seller delivered my purchase within three or four calendar days of my placing the order. It was received in good condition.
What more can anyone say?...more info - A POWERFUL, AND TRAGIC SCI-FI CLASSIC
This is my second favorite Gilliam masterpiece ( BRAZIL being only slightly better- and I do not blame anyone for disagreeing with me... ). Brad Pitt as a far-from-sane, eco-terrorist, and Bruce Willis as a hapless prisoner, and time-travelling, would-be savior of the future are intensely believable ( as is the marvelous Madeleine Stowe ) in one of the truly great apocalyptic sci-fi movies ever made. It's also a film that is full of subtle twists, and nuances that are both thrilling, tragic, and thought-provoking....more info - Best time-travel movie in years
Time travel is a particularly difficult sci-fi concept to get right. This version is the best I've seen in many a year. Bruce Willis gives one of his most vulnerable performances; Brad Pitt is wonderfully crazy (I believe he received an Oscar nomination for this role); and Madeline Stowe has great chemistry with Bruce....more info - If time were real...
This film is essentially based on the absurd idea of time, the idea that time is real, a dimension, which could be travelled through. The NSTP (Non - Spatial Thinking Process) theory, a major part of superultramodern science, suggests that time, like space, is not real, but is rather a mere form of illusion to non-spatial mind. Present is an experience whose physical/material bases are non-spatial feelings. Past, like space and time, is a mere feeling; not any concrete reality existing on its own. To be precise, past is a feeling I have that I felt/had it before. I can't even be sure that something happened in the past. Maybe it's just my feeling in the present, where present is also a feeling. Getting into the past therefore means having the right ideas (that would also exist as non-spatial feelings) that conceptually correspond to the past. And the means to do this is to, at least partly, investigate the design of the universe (probably written in the form of some central superhuman thoughts existing as non-spatial feelings) by say meditation. The film is thus flawed based on a flawed scientific idea. But still I rate this film 5 star as it is thought- provoking and may lead one to superultramodern science and deeper philosophical/scientific problems.
...more info - 12 Monkeys Blu-ray
It is a Blu-ray, a German Blu-ray. To watch the movie in English, you need to know a bit of German to go into the menu which is in German and switch to English and turn off the German subtitles. Otherwise, it is good disc....more info - A movie worth watching!
Twelve Monkeys is a sci-fi approach to the likely scenario that a deadly virus spreads rapidly, endangering mankind and threatening life on Earth. The likelihood of such a phenomenon is presently great indeed (SARS, Bird Flu etc), and hopefully the film will get many people thinking.
Apart from the "back from future" element, the movie is very realistic in its approach, and conveys a much needed message of the dangers facing the world, especially when dealing with viruses (i.e. how fast and easily many of them can spread). Moreover, one realizes how helpless governments would be in stopping or preventing such a disaster if a virus fell into the wrong hands.
Bruce Willis, Brad Pitt, and Medeleine Stowe, whose performances are simply AMAZING, make this movie one of the best of its kind.
The actors' great talent and chemistry clearly shows, thus providing a film that can be watched over and over again.
Resident Evil (Milla Jovovich) is another very good movie dealing with virus-related incidents/threats, though it falls much more under "Horror" than Twelve Monkeys, which is a more "Thriller/Action/Sci-Fi" type of film. Another movie that comes to mind is Outbreak (Dustin Hoffman, Morgan Freeman, Rene Rousseau), which probably provides the most realistic approach of the three to similar virus-related threats to humanity.
In short, Twelve Monkeys is a movie definitely worth watching (it's an eye opener) and one to seriously consider adding to your movie collection (if you haven't already done so)!
...more info - A flawless film
Sci-fi film in which Bruce Willis plays a time traveller who travels back to the year 1990 from a dystopian future to stop a virus that in the year 1996 will wipe out most of mankind and forces the survivors to live underground. However, when he arrives in the year 1990, he is believed to be mad and is placed in a mental institution, under the care of psychiatrist Madeleine Stowe. Stowe also believes that Willis is suffering from mental illness, with paranoid delusions of the end of the world, but then Willis mysteriously escapes from the solitary confinement cell he has been placed in following an attempt to escape the mental institution. Six years later, in 1996, Willis appears again and tracks Stowe down, taking her hostage and forcing her to drive across country to Philadelphia, because he needs her help to stop what he refers to as the `army of the twelve monkeys'. Stowe believes that she has been kidnapped by a dangerous schizophrenic and does not believe his claims, that he is from a future in which most of the world's population has been wiped out by a deadly virus and that he has come to try and stop this virus. But when strange things start happening that verify that Willis is indeed a time traveller, Stowe is forced to put her professional scepticism to one side and accept that Willis is not insane but has been speaking the truth the whole time. Now Stowe tracks Willis down, and is anxious to help him try to stop the virus and the end of the world. But now Willis has become the unbeliever, and has started to doubt his own sanity and wonder whether his memories of time travel and a dystopian future are real or rather the invention of a deranged mind. Ironically, Willis' psychiatrist now has to convince him that he is sane after all, and the stakes could not be higher, because if he does not start to believe this, all will be lost. This film was a quite flawless work of science-fiction imagination, relying on story rather than special effects to make its mark. Bruce Willis is excellent as our bemused hero who doesn't know whether he is sane or crazy and Madeleine Stowe is also faultless as the psychiatrist who at first believes that Willis is mentally ill but slowly becomes a believer. Brad Pitt is also notable as an eccentric animal rights activist that Willis first meets in the mental institution. This film has few if any special effects, even in the scenes set in the future and it is a testament to Willis's acting ability that I found myself empathising with the pain of Willis' character as he joyfully experienced the things that we take for granted - clean air, music, being able to live above ground - in contrast to the horrors of his own time. This film was an exemplar piece of story-telling; with its message about appreciating the world that we have even with its imperfections, a wonderful red herring and an excellent twist near the end of the film that elevated what would have been just an excellent film into an outstanding one. Highly recommended....more info - Amazing movie, nearly perfect.
I'll try not to explain the contents of the movie, which will be difficult because this one is hard to review without actually defining what happens within.
Suffice it to say, though, that this is one of the best movies I've ever seen. It seems to not get much more than a cult following at this moment, but as time passes there's no doubt in my mind that this will become a classic science fiction psychological thriller of the first order. Bruce Willis is unbelievable in this movie. Brad Pitt is very good, too. The acting is superb.
But, what I cannot stress enough is the absolute necessity of understanding what this film is really intended to do: *spoiler below*
*It's intended to express as best as possible what paranoid delusions are actually really like for mental illness patients. Trust me on that.
Ok, spoiler over, and that's not really much of one as it is. But, if you want to get into a little schizophrenia for yourself this is your movie. It's not for all audiences, though. Those who have genuine mental illness probably should not watch the movie at all. Maybe. On the other hand, maybe it could help them to understand better their own confusions.
Whatever.
The bottom line is that this is a fantastically well developed thriller with science fiction elements. It's totally psychological, and completely and utterly confusing in every way. In the end you are left wondering what you've just witnessed and what has just happened. You really don't know, but you think you do, but you don't. Seriously, the gripping conclusion continues the parallel theme of mental illness along side fantastic sci-fi trek through time.
It's perfectly done. I cannot recommend too many better movies for you. There just are very few that are as good as this one....more info - For me, it's arguably Gilliam's best film
I always find it fascinating when I see people praising classic films and yet when I watch them, I don't know what the point was. One of those films ended up being Terry Gilliam's Brazil. While visually cool, story-wise it was kind of boring and I didn't really care about the characters which is of course a big no-no. Same with Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas which I watched sober, so maybe that was the big difference. Nearly every weed smoking/beer drinking friend I have in town praises the film. So we come to 12 Monkeys which I liked and it's so far one of my favorites he's done.
It's the year 2035 and 5 billion people died thanks to a virus unleashed by the Army of the 12 Monkeys, a group of people who infected the world in 1996 and 1997. Cole, an inmate "volunteers" to travel to 1996 to obtain a pure sample since it's long since mutated with hopes of engineering a cure. However they sent him to 1990 and even worse, his rant and ravings about future viruses and mankind's near extinction gets him thrown in the nuthouse. What erupts from there is quite enthralling and will sure keep your brain on their toes...so to speak.
One thing I always love about these kind of films is how certain things in the future get explained such as literal writings on the wall to phone messages and it gets involving mentally, maybe a bit too much so. While I didn't get confused, some scenes will probably just fly over people's heads and leave them disoriented. Especially its ending which I won't spoil and while I did figure it out what it was, other parts I'm like "hey wait a minute, what about...?"
Bruce Willis, as well as maybe Mark Wahlberg and Orlando Bloom, as what I call the "William Hurt" factor: no matter how good their performance(or bad in the case of Bloom and occasional Wahlberg), they always sound so BORED. However, this film is arguably one of Bruce's best. Surprisingly it's also one of Brad Pitt's, playing Jeffrey Goines, a man who, as the box puts it mildly, has a few cards short of a full deck. Then there's Madeleine Stowe who I always liked in films she's in but I rarely see her. While there's other actors in the film, such as David Morse and Christopher Plummer, it's primarily these 3 that get center attention.
While I wouldn't necessarily buy 12 Monkeys unless someone bought it for me, it's certainly quite an enjoyable film in its own right....more info - AWESOME
I just replied to the reviewer who posted the review about sending a "moron" to do the job. Below is the comment I posted to his review. Oh, and 12 Monkeys was AWESOME! Must See!!
<>...more info - Great Movie. Got the message. I'm "there"/I got it.
This movie is one big Bob Marley's Redemption Song, especially the one line in that song that I think goes: "we laugh at our genuine prophets and then shed their blood.", this movie tells that truth. We make heroes and prophets out of phonies trying to destroy us, while screwing the real prophets for a good laugh. Sure this movie could have had an "uplifting" ending like the theatrical version of "Blade Runner" without "the vision of the unicorn" and James Cole could have gotten the psychiatrist girlfriend and lived happilly ever after. But the message wouldn't have been as clear and it would have had more traditional "entertainment value". We don't need more of that in this crazy, topsy-turvy world where we DO screw the real prophets and honest heroes with genuine good intentions for a good laugh. "We laugh at our genuine prophets and then shed their blood." While sitting in stupefied awe at the real "Armies of 12 Monkeys" and all that letting them screw over us. So, this is a serious movie with a serious and honest message. And if it had of had an entertainment value ending, it would be just another good "entertainment value" movie instead of the warning it is.
Captain Josh....more info - 12 monkeys are here
I've loved this movie since highschool and was so happy to find it without having to buy Mercury Rising or some other bad movie along with it. Why do they always package a bad movie with a really good one?? Anyways, it came in tip top shape and was watched the same....more info - 12 Monkeys HD DVD
DVD won't play even in my Sony HD DVD player. Am told that my brand new player needs an update. Not worth my time. Went with Blu Ray. LG...more info
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