Subject: REVIEW: 12 MONKEYS

From: [email-masked] (EDWARD ROBERT CHAMPION)
Date: 16 Jan 1996 02:58:52 GMT

12 MONKEYS
                       A film review by Edward Robert Champion
                        Copyright 1996 Edward Robert Champion

Rating: ***1/2 (out of four stars)

	One could argue that the concept of time travel has been explored 
in practically every facet in science fiction to the point of 
mind-numbing exhaustion.  Endless STAR TREK episodes with alternate 
realities, the mainstream foray via the BACK TO THE FUTURE trilogy and 
even a Jean Claude Van Damme film have all derived their stories from 
endless repetitions of the same plot, which begs the question, "How 
can Terry Gilliam make a time travel film original and different from all 
others?"

	By drawing "inspiration" from Chris Marker's unique 1962 film, LA 
JETEE and extricating the wit and intelligence of David and Janet 
People's rather scattershot script, he has, with his amazing use of 
visuals, created something unique and original and perhaps produced his most 
profound film yet.

	The film is about a plague-ridden future sometime in the 2020's 
and the recruitment of James Cole (played by Bruce Willis) to find the 
leader of the Army of the 12 Monkeys, who may or may not be Brad Pitt.  
He enlists the help of a psychiatrist (Madeline Stowe) along the way and 
begins to question whether or not his mission is an apparition inside of 
his head that he concocted.  Is he sick or is society?

	The film's look is remarkable.  Gilliam has made quite an effort 
to retain an interesting, dilapidated look throughout the film, from the 
opening shots of abandoned Philadelphia with its bears and tigers running 
through the streets to the asylum of the 1990 scenes.  Bright colors and 
oddly misplaced hues go hand in hand with crumbling walls and decay.

	The film is refreshingly chaotic, almost schizophrenic in its 
pace, which might cause a viewer to lose himself within the plot.  But 
plot is not the key factor for this film.

        The film continues to evince many of Gilliam's ongoing themes:
the need for fantasy in a decaying world of materialism, the definition  
of sanity by those who determine the rules and the definition of sanity
by the bohemian individual and the infiltration of the phantasmagorical
and the outre into industrialized society.  Yet 12 MONKEYS is more
pessimistic than Gilliam's other films and Gilliam speaks more with
the voice of a wise sage on the edge of the world than a free spirit.
Instead of the hopeful escape from a feudal and technological society by
an individual's own fantasy, fantasy is engineered via the deranged Brad
Pitt, himself the son of a member of the American elite.

	12 MONKEYS echoes many of Kubrick's views of humanity, portraying 
man as an ignoble savage, and leaves the audience with quite a lot to 
think about as the credits roll.  12 MONKEYS is a deeply visceral film, 
one that nearly erases Gilliam's other film for Universal, BRAZIL, out of 
existence in favor of Gilliam's more refined and dejected perspective of 
mankind.
-- 
-Edward Champion
 [email-masked]