“This is a place for crazy people. I’m not crazy.”

ZombieDog’s rating: If movies be the food of love play on

ZombieDog’s review: Cult films have been with us since the beginning. I believe they are necessary part of artistic expression and that it provides a look at what could be, what is, or what shouldn’t be. Cult films are not only at the edge of cinema, they are at the edge of society as well. That’s a wonderful place because magic happens there. We get to decide who we are.

The film I want to talk about today is a movie that is directed by an undisputed cult master, comic genius, and all-around visionary, Terry Gilliam. Gilliam started off in the comedy group Monty Python’s Flying Circus. After making straight-up masterpieces such as Brazil and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Gilliam released something insanely extraordinary: 12 Monkeys. 12 Monkeys pushed the boundaries of filmmaking in every way conceivable. It has a unique storyline, innovative cinematography, and some of the most effective casting I’ve ever seen.

At its core, 12 Monkeys is a science fiction movie about time travel. This is really only the surface, though; it’s really about insanity, the human condition, death, and destiny. James Cole (Bruce Willis) is in an underground prison in the year 2035. A virus has virtually wiped out all of humanity and the people that are left are desperately trying to figure out what happened. Willis is “volunteered” to go outside of their underground bunker to try and gather information.

Out there is a devastated world ruled by animals. These future scientists believe that they have found a way to gather more effective information by sending people back to the initial viral outbreak in the ’90s. They think Willis is a candidate because he is a “very good observer.” If he participates in their experiment, they promise to take significant time off of his prison sentence. He’s sent off with a warning: Traveling through time plays havoc with your brain.

The true beauty of this time travel aspect is that none of the scientists nor Cole himself believe that the past can be changed. They’re going to the past to observe only. This is pretty awesome. Most time travel movies break out the paradox that if you go back in time and kill Hitler, World War II wouldn’t happen or something of that nature. This film sees time as static.

What’s more, future science is less-than-perfect. What we really see in the future is a society that’s held together by duct tape and wishes. It is the end of humanity. Their first attempt to send Cole back fails because they sent him back to the wrong time (1990). Due to the effect of time travel or simply because Willis’s character was on the edge, the police from 1990 instantly grab him and put him in an insane asylum.

There, Cole meets Jeffrey Goines (a young Brad Pitt). Look, I’m comfortable enough in my sexuality to say Brad Pitt is one damn good-looking man. That being said, some of his best characters have been scummy bordering on revolting. Pitt gives an outstanding performance, probably one of the best I’ve ever seen from him.

The problem with writing about time travel movies — and nonlinear movies in particular — is that perspectives switch in a way that doesn’t always jive with conventional understanding. Add into the fact that Gilliam’s movies skew particularly strange and some of the characters here may be insane, making you constantly question what’s real.

12 Monkeys was a cult film right out of the gate. Terry Gilliam’s history has always been to make films that push the boundary of acceptance and artistic limits. 12 Monkeys definitely fits that bill. More than that it made a ton of cash. With a budget of $29 million, it managed to rake in $168 million. It also spawned a TV series that ran for four seasons. This movie is so good that it actually shows the function and purpose of cult films themselves.

Emile Durkheim a French sociologist talks about the necessity and purpose of deviance. One of his interpretations is that deviance can challenge people’s views and lead to positive social change. Culture by its very nature looks for new ways to discuss ideas, along with skepticism and sarcasm, humor and sadness, and truth and lies. 12 Monkeys embraces these concepts like no other film. Even more than that, Terry Gilliam’s entire catalog and career is an example of how to push the boundary of art.

So, is this movie any good? Hell yes! If you haven’t seen it run out of your house at this very moment and mug a red box machine until it coughs up a copy. Coming up on 30 years old this movie still holds up. The films low budget can be seen little, but barely that you would even notice. The casting is flat-out amazing, and the actors gave their all. Bruce Willis is good, but Brad Pitt is over the top. 12 Monkeys is one of Gilliam’s best films, and also one of his most productive periods ending with Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. If you truly love cult films or are just starting your journey, then 12 Monkeys is an absolute must.

PoolMan’s rating: It’d be far too easy to rate this on a monkey scale. So I won’t. (Two thumbs up! Eh? Eh?)

PoolMan’s review: I have a lot of friends who don’t like Bruce Willis. They claim he comes off as flat, uninteresting, and ultimately only plays one character: himself (or perhaps, John McClaine). The Sixth Sense changed a lot of minds bout this opinion, but if you want to break this rumour completely, sit down and watch the 12 Monkeys. Egad.

I have a new favourite in this movie. James Cole (Willis) comes from a post-apocalyptic earth where humans are forced to live underground due to the release of a supervirus released in 1996 by a militant protest group named the 12 Monkeys. His mission is not to stop the release, as that is believed to be inevitable, but rather to gather all the information possible about the original, pure virus so that they can find a cure for the people of the future and live on the earth’s surface again.

However, what we quickly realize is that Cole is quite mad. Is he really a traveler in time, or is he simply a drooling psychotic who fashions fantasy out of incredibly distorted reality? Is his madness the symptom of time travel, the effects of the human mind’s inability to occupy two points in time, or is he really just insane? Will the virus prevail? What is the 12 Monkeys’ place in history?

You’ll know by the end, but not before, and expect your opinion to shift a couple of times. Actually, to tell a whole lot about the story is to render it null and void. You simply have to experience it for yourself. Just when you’re starting to think James is insane, it looks like he’s actually telling the truth, and just when the truth starts to reveal itself, it disappears in a shroud of secrecy again. Eventually the characters surrounding him all have similar dilemmas.

Willis shines in this role, and in my own opinion, he outdoes himself in the Sixth Sense. The various scenes depicting the decay of his mind, both in the future and in the past are gritty, dark, and frightening. Seeing him chained, drugged, and salivating on the floor of the mental hospital is a disturbing image. It’s hardly the only one here.

Also, look for the equally outstanding Brad Pitt as the mental patient Jeffrey Goines. Seriously, he steals nearly every scene he’s in, and I would personally put this performance ahead of Se7en without blinking. He is simultaneously likeable, unstable, dangerous, and incredibly enigmatic. Wonderfully done.

I’ve said it before, I love science fiction done right. Interesting, growing characters, deep storylines, and excellent imagery are often overlooked in the genre, but 12 Monkeys has them in spades. Combine that with the thick, murky darkness that permeates this film, and you’ve got a Slaughterhouse 5-flavoured winner.

Watch it with the lights off.

Justin’s rating: Would you like to buy a monkey?

Justin’s review: I remember seeing this in the theaters and being majorly disappointed. Not because 12 Monkeys was a bad movie, but because I found the ending so obvious and really expected something a little deeper and a little more profound. However, on multiple viewings afterward I grew an affection for this movie, akin to a familiar scab that I keep digging at so that it won’t ever go away.

One of the more bizarre time travel tales out there, 12 Monkeys begins in the future, where mankind lives underground after a plague’s wiped out the majority of the human race. Prisoner James Cole (Bruce Willis) is so good on his observation trips to the surface that some wacked-out scientists enlist his help to travel back in time and discover the cause of the massive plague. He first ends up in 1990, where he lands up in a mental institute and encounters the deranged Jeffrey (Brad Pitt) and helpful psychiatrist Dr. Railly (Madeline Stowe). A second trip brings him to World War I. Finally he ends up in 1996 and deep into the 12 Monkeys conspiracy.

This being a Terry Gillam film, we’re treated to a world somewhere in a parallel universe. It’s full of funky costume designs (plastic seems to be the fashion statement of the future) and sets (the mental institute is particularly otherworldly). Generally, the whole feel of the movie is both gritty and jury-rigged, and it works well to create a new look at a post-apocalyptic future.

Also, Brad Pitt is so jittery and fragmented that it made me jumpy to watch his performance, yet it is entertaining nonetheless.

What is it about monkeys, anyway? Cute, furry, nasty, somewhat resembling certain athletes I knew in college. In any case, they make a cool centerpiece for this film. There’s a lot of recurring imagery and themes of monkeys, the Florida Keys, and Brad Pitt through the whole film. I think that I was initially dissatisfied with 12 Monkeys because I had expectations on how films like this should turn out. Gilliam doesn’t like to pander to the typical plot twists, and strange as his movies are, at least they dare to be different. And when it comes to 12 little monkeys, different is always good.

Intermission!

• The blood all over Catherine’s hands in the final scene at the airport disappears rather quickly.
• James’ last name (Cole) is the first name of the boy in The Sixth Sense.
• A guard in the mental institute is reading the Weekly World News
• The insane asylum rec room is introduced by a shot of a TV showing a cartoon of an animal bouncing off a mattress and doing flips. Near the end, the whorehouse is introduced by a shot of kids in a vacant lot doing the same thing.
• The connections with Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo
• Cole: Look at them. They’re just asking for it. Maybe the human race deserves to be wiped out.