Featured Audience Ratings

• Bob S

  
  An overwrought, messy, and confusing sci-fi with a silly Hitchcock nod at the end. Terry Gilliam has one of the world's great fertile imaginations but I find that he returns to the same thematic and stylistic material again and again. 12 Monkeys is where I simply had enough… More
  An overwrought, messy, and confusing sci-fi with a silly Hitchcock nod at the end. Terry Gilliam has one of the world's great fertile imaginations but I find that he returns to the same thematic and stylistic material again and again. 12 Monkeys is where I simply had enough of his cartoony mad holy quest time-travel grungy dystopia vision. You know what this movie reminds me of ? That cheesy no-budget MTV video by the Police for Synchronicty II where Sting is wearing a "futuristic" costume inexplicably festooned in ribbons. "Oh no! The post-apocalyptic future will be windy and covered in torn fabric!" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UlSK4WVZ9A Same deal - stick a fork in 'em, they're done.

• Kase V

  
  '12 Monkeys' is easily one of the best science fiction movies of all time. I am not a huge fan of Gilliam's style and some parts of the story may get a little choppy, but this film's potency cannot be denied. Willis handles the main role superbly well, but Pitt is… More
  '12 Monkeys' is easily one of the best science fiction movies of all time. I am not a huge fan of Gilliam's style and some parts of the story may get a little choppy, but this film's potency cannot be denied. Willis handles the main role superbly well, but Pitt is a freakishly good mental patient that makes it look easy. It's no wonder his performance was lauded at the Oscars. The production design is eerie and uniquely well done, and the script is entertaining and enticing. There are few flaws to be found in this film, but for those that find them, they are easily excused. '12 Monkeys' is that sometimes rare combination of a movie that is so well done and so entertaining at the same time. I could barely tear my eyes and mind from the screen.

• Directors C

  
  [img]http://images.rottentomatoes.com/images/user/icons/icon14.gif[/img] Terry Gilliam is a true visionary director, the idea that 12 Monkeys is as criminally forgotten as it is, really astounds me. Not only did the film's production face many setbacks but Gilliam himself got… More
  [img]http://images.rottentomatoes.com/images/user/icons/icon14.gif[/img] Terry Gilliam is a true visionary director, the idea that 12 Monkeys is as criminally forgotten as it is, really astounds me. Not only did the film's production face many setbacks but Gilliam himself got injured filming it and even had to convince Willis to face a paycut after some problems with the studio. It really seemed like the project was never going to get past the early stages of pre-production. But his vision came to life in due course and the idea that the final cut turned out to be as good as it did is something I simply could not believe. It's one of the few films i've seen with a star studded cast that has universally inspired performances all around. It also has visually incredible set design and a plot so quirkily conceived it's typically strange Gilliam material. I think that the air of emotional detatchment that is depicted in the mechanics of the film, that many people seem to be alienated by was influenced by the script deliberately, and personally I found it consistently entertaining with all of it's many plot twists. It's basically a film about ideas like many classic science fiction movies such as Close Encounters and 2001: A Space Odyssey. It deals with human's obessions with technology, our constant desire to control, with a central theme that eventually when the day comes in which humans fall, animals will then inherit the Earth from us. With many similarities to his later performance in Fight Club, Brad Pitt stands out performance-wise although Willis and Stowe are both fantastic. It isn't without any flaws, the incredibly complex narrative is often hard to grasp onto and the tone of the film is forever changing. And so I dont think it's Gilliam's masterpiece by a long shot. But I would say it's an interesting character driven piece that just happens to be in the body of a science fiction blockbuster about time travel.

• Eric S

  
  I like the idea, but "12 Monkeys" is a poorly directed mess. The cinematography is bad and almost makes it feel like a B-Movie. The story is somewhat interesting but is executed in a bizarre way. I think it's the style of the director; I don't care for it. I also… More
  I like the idea, but "12 Monkeys" is a poorly directed mess. The cinematography is bad and almost makes it feel like a B-Movie. The story is somewhat interesting but is executed in a bizarre way. I think it's the style of the director; I don't care for it. I also think there's just a little too much time-travel, which makes the plot a bit messy.

• c0up  

  
  12 Monkeys. Bleak, dystopian time-travel sci-fi done right. Time travel and paradoxes. Hollywood finds this impossible to do well, and time and time again, I've hated how this school of time travel has been subscribed to by TV shows and films, but I loved the way 12 Monkeys… More
  12 Monkeys. Bleak, dystopian time-travel sci-fi done right. Time travel and paradoxes. Hollywood finds this impossible to do well, and time and time again, I've hated how this school of time travel has been subscribed to by TV shows and films, but I loved the way 12 Monkeys approached it. 12 Monkeys was pretty clear with its time travel rules and what I'd classify as an unhappy [happy for me] ending. Cole gets a second chance, seeks a new life filled with hope and happiness, dies. Boom! Its ending however, leaves some room to be discussed. Are the sinister-seemingly incompetent at times-scientists of the future wanting nothing to change so they remain in their position of power, sending Cole on a hunt to simply fulfill his fate, dying at the airport? I say sinister, because, why else would they not try and save the world's population in the first place? Purely to avoid pardoxes? Then you hear madam scientist [Jones] in conversation with the assistant on the plane, and she seems quite happy with a cleaning of the slate. "It's obscene. All the violence, all the lunacy. Shootings even at airports now. You might say that we're the next endangered species. Human beings. I think you're right, ma'am. I think you've hit the nail on the head. Jones is my name. I'm in insurance." Even the false promise of Josà (C) and giving his gun to help Cole kill the assistant is what more than likely leads to the guards seeing Cole as a threat and killing him. Ok, so Cole dies, but at least he died so the scientists can obtain a cure to eventually save humanity, right? The scientist is on board the plane with the assistant, and can obtain a sample to take back to the future and humanity can be saved. That's, something! Then I read this interpretation, which is even darker... "So the second interpretation of the final line -- "I'm in insurance" -- is that she is there to ensure that Cole fails and the virus is spread. After all, they are in charge in the future, and the virus put them there. If they come up with a vaccine, their power is threatened. So why not send people on wild goose chases to pretend they're working on something and use it as a way to eliminate those who cause trouble (as Cole had done)?" Either way, this doesn't end in sunshine and rainbows. Bruce Willis put forward a fine performance as a man whose mind is all over the place, but, Brad Pitt, you crazy kid, you! Amidst the bleakness and despair, an honourable mention has to go out to Pitt's Jeffrey Goines. A treat to watch, playing a psychotic, zany mental patient and resident red herring. This is my first time seeing it, and even early on, I couldn't help but make comparisons to Duncan Jones' Source Code. I was disappointed with Source Code, and felt it left its smarts to tick more Hollywood blockbuster boxes, and now, doubly so, seeing the similarities and how uninspired it was viewed against 12 Monkeys. [text from http://blog.c0up.com/12-monkeys-spoilers-duh]

• Graham J

  
  Gilliam's darkest look at the future.

• Daniel P

  
  I'm still not 100 per cent sure that I knew what was going on during most of this movie. And yet, it was fairly original, and kind of trippy, and rather well acted, and suspenseful... just a cool flick. Part of two interesting mid-90s "out there" trifectas, for both… More
  I'm still not 100 per cent sure that I knew what was going on during most of this movie. And yet, it was fairly original, and kind of trippy, and rather well acted, and suspenseful... just a cool flick. Part of two interesting mid-90s "out there" trifectas, for both Pitt (12 Monkeys-Se7en-Fight Club) and Willis (12 Monkeys-Fifth Element-Sixth Sense), this is a movie to see, and to see again, as I plan to do soon. Wacky stuff, really enjoyed it.

• Steven C

  
  There is so much going on in Terry Gilliam's "12 Monkeys." From a story standpoint, the narrative is sprawling and complex. From a visual standpoint the film has an incredible amount of detail. From an emotional standpoint the performances are committed and vivid. All… More
  There is so much going on in Terry Gilliam's "12 Monkeys." From a story standpoint, the narrative is sprawling and complex. From a visual standpoint the film has an incredible amount of detail. From an emotional standpoint the performances are committed and vivid. All of this adds up to an energetic and chaotic experience. Thankfully Gilliam has a firm hand over the screenplay, making "12 Monkeys" an ultimately rewarding experience. The major complaint with the film is that, since the viewer is always being bombarded with new concepts, images and wacky characters, the film feels a lot longer than it is. "12 Monkeys" can be exhausting, but like I said, the ending is certainly worth it. If the film didn't end so strongly it might not have been worth it. Aside from an uncomfortably obvious Hitchcock reference, the film ends on a resonant, metaphysical note. The film also works as well as it does due to the trio of central performances. Bruce Willis, Madeleine Stowe and Brad Pitt deliver their characters seriously. They are anxious, crazy people, but you always believe them. This is no easy feat. They somehow find the perfect balance of hyper and real.

• Richard C

  
  What a great movie. Very entertaining and smart. I really enjoyed this movie. Grade: A-

• Sergio G

  
  Shame on me. I haven't seen Brasil but I have heard it's a fantastic scifi movie. But while I do my homework, this is to me the best Terry Gilliam's movie I've ever seen. Brad Pitt's acting is fantastic. The story of an unknown apocalypsis already took place… More
  Shame on me. I haven't seen Brasil but I have heard it's a fantastic scifi movie. But while I do my homework, this is to me the best Terry Gilliam's movie I've ever seen. Brad Pitt's acting is fantastic. The story of an unknown apocalypsis already took place and therefore James Cole has been sent to the past to help the scientists in the future to learn what a hell happened.

• Jens S

  
  Terry Gilliam paints a pretty pessimistic picture of the future, where the few survivors or a worldwide pandemic dwell underground. At least they managed to find the means to time travel, not without trial and error. Bruce Willis is sent back to investigate the cause of the virus.… More
  Terry Gilliam paints a pretty pessimistic picture of the future, where the few survivors or a worldwide pandemic dwell underground. At least they managed to find the means to time travel, not without trial and error. Bruce Willis is sent back to investigate the cause of the virus. After many hero roles, this was a rather unusual one, with his drooling and spider-eating. The plot is really smart, full of false leads and twist. The ending is pretty sobering but leaves enough space for interpretations. The production design is disturbing, as always with Gilliam. Still, the cinematography offers several unforgettable shots, especially of the animals taking over Philadelphia. A dark, exciting emotional rollercoaster ride.

• AJ V

  
  From the creators of Brazil, comes another great sci-fi thriller. It involves time travel, politics, and memory. All the best sci-fi themes. Plus, it's exciting and suspenseful. I highly recommend this movie to sci-fi fans.

• xGary X

  
  Yet another inventive fantasy from Terry Gilliam, 12 Monkeys is the story of a prisoner in the future who volunteers to go back in time and gather information on a plague that wiped out the human race originating in modern day Philadelphia. Brad Pitt's idea of insanity seems to… More
  Yet another inventive fantasy from Terry Gilliam, 12 Monkeys is the story of a prisoner in the future who volunteers to go back in time and gather information on a plague that wiped out the human race originating in modern day Philadelphia. Brad Pitt's idea of insanity seems to be to channel Dennis Hopper in Apocalypse Now after 3 gallons of espresso, but Bruce Willis gives easily one of his best performances as the man out of time, tortured by the burden of the knowledge of the deaths of 5 billion people he seems completely unable to prevent and fearing for his sanity. Madeleine Stowe displays her usual appealing combination of beauty and vulnerability and the future scenes show off some more excellent production design born of Gilliam's fantastic imagination. The story penned by one of the co-writers of Blade Runner is an intriguing time paradox based on short film La Jetee and although it lacks much of the ex-Python's trademark satirical humour, it still ranks amongst his best.

• Jennifer X

  
  When he came back to the past the second time, I was like, really now? That's when you know that the movie is getting too long and full of itself.

• Fernando Rafael Q

  
  12 Monkeys is a surreal and crazy tale, with magnificent directing and writing. The art direction is remarkable and the lead actors (Bruce Willis and Madeleine Stowe) are great; but it's Brad Pitt who gives the best performance in the picture (and of his lifetime)...

• Lenny M

  
  One of Brad Pitt's best acting efforts. A mindtruck film with a downer ending, deep themes.

• Martin S

  
  Interesting movie. Great acting by the people involved. Little surprised that Willis could skip his Stone-face-though-guy persona and just act. So thumbs up for him. And his face is just priceless when he listens to music in the car. That is happiness personified.

• Daniel M

  
  Just as Star Wars shifted the focus of science fiction from inner space to outer space, so there is a trend in the 1980s and early-1990s for time travel films which are more concerned with the mechanics of time travel than its metaphysical implications. For all the intelligence of… More
  Just as Star Wars shifted the focus of science fiction from inner space to outer space, so there is a trend in the 1980s and early-1990s for time travel films which are more concerned with the mechanics of time travel than its metaphysical implications. For all the intelligence of Back to the Future or The Terminator, their fascinations with how a flux capacitor could actually work leads us to get distracted from the trauma of the characters. Eventually this trend of effects over characters gave us the likes of Timecop, in which time travel is little more than a gimmick to liven up a pedestrian action premise. In one fell swoop, Twelve Monkeys completely redresses this imbalance which has dogged this area of science fiction for some time. Taking the best elements of the Chris Marker short Le Jetee, it draws on the likes of Blade Runner and Slaughterhouse Five to create a chilling and compelling portrait of both a post-apocalyptic future and a chaotic near-present on the brink of destruction. The examination of time travel in Twelve Monkeys centres around Novikov?s self-consistency principle. This complicated area of theoretical physics deals with the issue of paradoxes ? for instance, going back in time to kill one?s own grandfather. It essentially postulates that while time travel may be physically and technically possible, the past and future cannot be altered because any intervention by the traveller would create a paradox. A good cinematic example to illustrate this is the much-maligned ending of Superman, in which Superman reverses time by spinning the Earth backwards so he can avert an earthquake and stop Lois from being killed. In this example, the cause of Superman going back in time is the death of Lois ? but if he changes events and she lives, he would have no reason to go back and so Lois would still die. The timelines correct themselves, with cause and effect cancelling each other out. Twelve Monkeys expands this realisation into a fascinating thesis on the futility of humanity and its inability to avert potential, self-imposed disasters. Novikov?s logic is present throughout: Cole is chosen to go back because he is a good observer, rather than some kind of hero who can stop the virus. The scientists who send him there are only interested in finding a cure for their society, rather than stopping the virus at inception. And Cole witnesses his own death but can do nothing to prevent it. Cole and his counterparts are modern-day Cassandras: figures which, in the words of Dr. Railly, have ?the agony of foreknowledge combined with impotence to do anything about it.? Cole?s agony is aggravated by the flashbacks he has of the airport, which, without giving too much away, become more significant and poignant as the film rolls on. There is a through-line between Cole?s predicament and that of Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse Five; both characters have some foreknowledge of their own deaths and some form of contempt for the powers-that-be, whether they be generals or scientists. To prevent such a depressing thesis from weighing the film down, Twelve Monkeys is shot is a deeply disorientating manner. There are many Gilliam tropes involved such as unusual camera angles and cleverly timed zooms which gave a sense of scale and demonstrate how small our protagonists are. Most of the scenes (especially those with Brad Pitt) have an immense kinetic energy, with a script which walks a tightrope between wacky profundity and blathering nonsense. But unlike on his later films, Gilliam?s execution of these scenes is perfect and profundity always wins out. Like Brazil and The Fisher King before it, Twelve Monkeys is a great examination of insanity and the thin line between madness and genius. But what makes this film clever is the way in which our perceptions of madness and sanity shift as the characters develop and more information about the apocalypse comes to light. There is a rich thread running throughout the film about the assumed status and logic of sciences like psychiatry, and how this status is used to manipulate people. This clearly hints back to the work of French philosopher Michael Foucault, whose work in Discipline and Punish explored the relationship between knowledge (e.g. the discipline of psychiatry) and power (the way individuals can be controlled through the received credibility of said discipline). At the beginning, we are convinced that Cole is the only sane person within the world of the film. The doctors who examine him in 1990 diagnose him as mad on the basis of the accepted wisdom of psychiatry, the ?new religion?. But by the final half-hour, it is Railly who is convinced that he was telling the truth, while Cole wants to accept that he is delusional. In the end, we don?t know how real anything is any more. We remain glued to the story because of the high stakes and tension, but are just as confused, hysterical and disorientated as the characters, which in itself is testament to the immersive power of the film. This rich, enticing vein of ambiguity runs throughout the screenplay, which comes from the co-writers of Blade Runner. This time round it is not a question of who is human and who is a replicant, but of who is mad or sane. And as in Blade Runner, there is an appealing third possibility ? namely that neither distinction matters because the lines between them are blurry, artificial constructs. Like Deckard and Rachael before them, Cole and Railly choose to abandon their intended paths and escape, not just from this dark world but from all concept of reality. Fantasy and reality blur into one in the final section: one moment they are in a cinema showing The Birds, the next Railly is a Hitchcockian blonde who appears as Cole?s salvation. Aside from its bleak exploration of time travel, Twelve Monkeys is a great political document, subtly tipping its hat to a wide range of contemporary issues. Having a virus which is destined to wipe out most of mankind can be interpreted as a reaction to the growing AIDS pandemic. The film is deeply cynical about political action, depicting the Army of the Twelve Monkeys as ?teenagers playing revolution? in the mother of all red herrings. And many of Brad Pitt?s jabberings in the mental hospital are insightful comments about Western culture. Comments about people becoming little more than consumers and being infantilised by television are closely reminiscent of Neil Postman?s arguments in Amusing Ourselves to Death. The performances in Twelve Monkeys are all of the highest calibre. Bruce Willis gives his finest performance as Cole, displaying genuine sensitivity and emotional depth so that we genuinely feel the pain and suffering of his character. The few action sequences in the film are downplayed so that they don?t feel like John McClane has burst into the future. Madeleine Stowe has the same kind of stoic noir beauty that Sean Young has in Bade Runner, managing to show frenzy without ever overcooking it. Brad Pitt is great, managing to play crazy without annoying us, and giving a rounded performance fully deserving of his Oscar nomination. And David Morse is downright chilling in his pivotal role; certainly it?s a million miles from Brutus Howell in The Green Mile. Twelve Monkeys is an outstanding science fiction film written and directed with confidence and intelligence. The performances are superb, the visuals and set design are captivating, the dialogue is both funny and poignant, and the ending is truly perfect. As a Gilliam film it takes pride of place next to Brazil, and it is up there with The Green Mile as one of the greatest films of the 1990s. An utter triumph from every conceivable angle, which will scramble your brain and stay with you forever.

• Conner R

  
  I think the world that Terry Gilliam created in Brazil really came to use here and I feel it's a better film. Not only is the humor a little more subtle and demented, but the bleak and ironic ending really makes an impression. This is probably one of the most cynical depictions… More
  I think the world that Terry Gilliam created in Brazil really came to use here and I feel it's a better film. Not only is the humor a little more subtle and demented, but the bleak and ironic ending really makes an impression. This is probably one of the most cynical depictions of the future, making it still stand out. The performances are absolutely flawless from Bruce Willis and a completely deranged yet amazing Brad Pitt. The visuals in the film again are much like Brazil, but I think they are even better here. I think it's actually one of the most important science fiction films to come out in the last two decades. It just really nails down the human aspect in a way that no other film has tried to do.

• Bruce B

  
  Can't believe that it took me this long to see this movie. Maybe when this movie was first released it might have come off better then it did for me. The Army of the 12 monkeys was enjoyable but nothing that was worth standing up and shouting about. Its a good rental or a $2.99… More
  Can't believe that it took me this long to see this movie. Maybe when this movie was first released it might have come off better then it did for me. The Army of the 12 monkeys was enjoyable but nothing that was worth standing up and shouting about. Its a good rental or a $2.99 purchase but beyond that, I can only go 3 1/2 stars.

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