From the space between the past and the future, buried somewhere flush against both madness and sanity, comes the time traveling story about potentially crazy people. We all want the future to be perfect. Flying cars, moving platforms, and robot servants will make life good. In the past the idealized future job has been to simply sit around all day and maybe push a button or two. Anyone who has worked in an office or cubicle can tell you that can be boring and tedious work, and definitely not the job of the future. Didn’t you get the memo? As much as I dreamed of a future with an Astro of my own, there are those who had a decidedly different outtake on what the future would look like.
12 Monkeys, although set in the past, starts in the future. In 1996, a virus developed for chemical warfare was released into the general population and wiped out about five billion people. About thirty years later, the remaining populus has sheltered themselves in underground habitats leaving the world above to the animals. James Cole (Bruce Willis) is a prisoner in an underground jail, and is selected to be a volunteer. He is sent back in time several times by the scientists to find the origin of the virus that nearly eliminated the human race. A group called the Twelve Monkeys has left signs all over the city of origin stating “12 Monkeys; We Did It.”
Throughout the film, Cole is troubled with recurring dreams involving a chase and a shooting in an airport. In the future Time travel is not a perfected art, and Cole finds himself only six years off of his mark the first trip back, ending up in 1990. He is arrested almost immediately, and a short time after put in the care of a mental hospital. There he meets Jeffery Goines (Brad Pitt) who did so dang well in this roll it’s really difficult to believe that this pretty boy could ever be sane again.] with whom he confides in his knowledge about the future and the inevitable fall of the human race.
Encountering the same characters through his travels, Cole spends the first half of the film attempting to convince others that he has indeed come from the future, and a wonderfully crazy bit when he's convinced that the future is all in his head. Cole chases the clues from the future about the twelve monkeys around town, and watches as the people around him create those clues themselves. The film builds to a beautifully shot crescendo ending that had been hinted at through the story, and will make viewers want to watch it all over again.
Terry Gilliam takes the audience not only on a ride through the future-past, but through your own inner psyche as well. There is never a date captioned on the screen to let the viewers know when they are watching, allowing those with more susceptible minds to be dragged into the madness along with Cole. Can he really travel through time? Is the future as bleak as he makes it sound? Or is it all just in his head? Does he have a one-way ticket to crazy town? If so he has invited you to be his guest of honor.
Special Features
12 Monkeys Blu-Ray includes Feature Commentary with Director Terry Gilliam and Producer Charles Roven, a 12 Monkeys Archives, and The Hampster Factor, a documentary filmed durring the filming of the film.
Overall
12 Monkeys has been a favorite film of mine sense the first time I saw it in theatres. I grew up with a father who strongly believed that anything any member of Monty Python touched was gold, and can say from a strong, lifelong fan point that this Blu-Ray is worth picking up. The sound is crisp and the images are restored and remastered beautifully. Plus if you have not seen the Hampster Effect documentary before, it is defenently worth a watch.
Comics Online gives 12 Monkeys 4.5 out of 5 Teeth with Built in Tracking Devices.
