12 Monkeys

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant
Review: One of the most inexplicably underrated films in my memory. It wasn't that "12 Monkeys" didn't get any praise; I saw it during its theatrical run, and the reviews were all generally positive. But it just never seemed to catch on in the collective consciousness the way it truly deserved.

This is easily as fine a work as Gilliam's earlier "Brazil." In fact, I like it better. The most brilliant stroke is leaving so many questions unresolved--you may think you know the answers, and perhaps you do, but all of the loops are frozen a tantalizing fraction from closure. Who, for example, is the mysterious woman who claims to be in "insurance" at the end? Haven't we seen her before? And just what part of the whole experience is in James Cole's head?

Director Gilliam's unique visual sense is wrapped around the entire puzzle like the most well-fit suit you can imagine. I honestly can't think of a flaw with this picture; I loved it, and it has a well-earned permanent spot in my collection. Avoid if you have no interest in a challenge; everyone else should devour "12 Monkeys" like the visual and dramatic feast it is.

Rating:
Summary: A Barrel of Monkeys
Review: What appears to be a strange, post-apocolyptic nightmare of a film, turns out to be a tight, cleverly designed adventure. With its 'Brazil-esque' view of the future, the film looks jarringly difficult to follow, especially as time travel is utilized. If you make it through, all of the time travel is made clear and the storyline narrows down nicely to a definite conclusion, something that seems improbable at the start. Bruce Willis, who with his work in DIE HARD, THE SIXTH SENSE, THE KID and 12 MONKEYS is becoming one of our most unique and interesting actors. Brad Pitt does a bit of scene stealing himself, especially in his early appearances in a mental hospital. This film is science fiction, dark and definitely not for everyone.

Rating:
Summary: GILLIAM, GILLIAM, GILLIAM........
Review: What a movie! I like the fact that a lot of people i've talked don't like this movie. It makes it more of MY favorite movie. Well, i don't know if it is my favorite but it's close! Terry Gilliam is the one of the most creative minds in film. This also has the best performance by Brad Pitt that you'll see!

Rating:
Summary: excellent SCI-FI
Review: Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt have never been better! This is one of the greatest SCI-FIs ever and you need to see this. I strongly reccomend this and if you haven't seen this, than for sure rent it.

Rating:
Summary: Work of Art
Review: I rented this movie, expecting it to be an ordinary sci-fi movie. It is anything but that. It is so original, and so confusing it makes it a masterpiece. The vision is a dark one indeed, but it needed that to make it all fit. I am a Gilliam fan, and this is almost on-par with one of the best science fiction movies ever, Brazil.

Rating:
Summary: Not what I expected
Review: When bought this movie I was expecting a much better movie then what it really is. I guess for people that like sci-fi stuff, it would be a great movie. But if anyone out there isnt a sci-fi fan and you want to buy it because you have heard its good, dont buy it because the people you heard that from are probably sci-fi fans. The ending was very exciting though.

Rating:
Summary: A beautiful failure
Review: A bedraggled convict with a bar code tattooed into his neck and tracking devices embedded inside his molars is clamped into a bare metal chair and hurdled headlong into the wrong yesteryear where he emerges dazed, distraught, and slobbering like a hound dog with parvo. He is subsequently beaten, scrubbed raw and imprisoned in an insane asylum. Welcome to 12 Monkeys. Terry Giliam is a filmmaker who can usually be counted on to bring to the screen artful direction and overtly convoluted storytelling. His work is not always smart, but it is always different. 12 Monkeys is actually a stylized retelling of the 1962 French short film, La Jetee. In Gilliam's version, Bruce Willis plays James Cole, a tough, canny convict from the year 2035 who is sent -- not entirely of his own accord -- into the past to investigate the origins of a deadly virus that wiped out 99 percent of the earth's population in 1996. Cole's present (2035) is a desolate, post-apocalyptic world. His past (the 1990s) proves more exciting. The cops and shrinks of the past label Cole insane and place him in a mental institution, where he encounters a curious and compassionate psychiatrist (Madeleine Stowe) and a ranting psychoneurotic (Brad Pitt).

What follows is a filmmaker who cannot keep a firm grasp on the movie as a whole. And because 12 Monkeys is more concerned with cerebral than physical actions, it brings a note of beleaguered passivity to Willis' anguished aggressor; because he can't change the history books, his Cole is occasionally reduced to baleful banalities. Surprisingly, Gilliam resorts to the obvious to hammer his points home. There's a ridiculously lengthy scene in a revival house as Cole and Railly watch Hitchcock's 1958 classic Vertigo, to stress the dreamlike duality that Gilliam's 12 Monkeys so desperately wants to emulate. While 12 Monkeys is aesthetically striking with its dingy antiseptic leitmotif, the film's premise -- a haggard hero travels to the past to save the future -- brings nothing new to the dinner table (think Terminator). And though Gilliam's slight-of-hand treatment of the plot merits good marks for effort, a few of the story's twists and turns -- such as Cole's brief and contrived appearance in a bloody, muddy World War I trench are way too, shall I say typical?, to warrant applause for originality. Ultimately, If for nothing else, 12 Monkeys deserves scorn for climaxing with an open-ending that it does not earn.

Rating:
Summary: It might be real
Review: Honestly, 12 monkeys is the greatest movie I have ever watched. 12 monkeys gives us, let's say "A portrait of the future". Before 300 or 200 years, no one was expecting or believing that someone will step on the moon, but now we believe it 'coz it happened. 12 monkeys is fantasy story, but it might be real in the comin' years, I hope that won't happen, but we should go deep an' deep with our imagination. I do like such movies. Watch it, enjoy it. Thanks for everyone helped makin' 12 monkeys.

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding!!
Review: In a word, this film is a masterpiece... It is a work of incredible beauty and complexity that can be enjoyed many times over. It is a sci-fi epic that manages to be both cynical and hopeful at the same time. It thrills with it's crazy style and entertains with it's outstanding performances (it's the film that transformed me into a Brad Pitt fan, which was reinforced by Fight Club)... From the opening credits with it's creepy accordian theme, to the last ethereal moment, this is a movie to be savored.

Rating:
Summary: There are two great movies on this DVD
Review: 12 Monkeys is the best Terry Gilliam film and one of the best science fiction movies of all time. It is an intelligent time travel thriller filled with so much density and complexity that it gets better even after being viewed 20 or 30 times. Bruce Willis gives the performance of his life and so does Brad Pitt.

But more than just the great film, this DVD has more to offer. There is a 2 hour making-of documentary called The Hamster Factor that is the best behind-the-scenes movie I've ever seen. Gilliam suspected that he might have fights with the studio over this film like he did with Brazil and so he documented every part of production with complete honesty. This is a wonderful way to see the real unglamourous production of the classic movie. Great stuff.