STUFF YOU GOTTA WATCH

12 MONKEYS

(1995)

With Bruce Willis, Brad Pitt, Madeleine Stowe, Christopher Plummer
Directed by Terry Gilliam
Reviewed by JB

It was the weird symbols in blood that drove him away from Demi One of my two favorite films that dare to cast the sacred cow of Animal Rights Activists as the catalysts for mankind's downfall, 12 MONKEYS is an involving, disturbing and ultimately depressing science fiction thriller that ranks as one of the best films of the 1990s. Although director Terry Gilliam did not write the script, it is right up his alley, being another warning about a hopeless future ala BRAZIL. Gilliam's first big "Hollywood" film features Bruce Willis, one of the decade's greatest action stars, and Brad Pitt, who had just become the latest Hollywood pin-up boy, in a tale of a convict (Willis) sent back in time from 2035 to the '90s to gather information on the virus that wiped out 99 percent of humanity. The film never allows you to be comfortable; every time you begin to think you know where it is going, you discover you are wrong. One of Gilliam's tightest and strongest films, not as cartoonish as TIME BANDITS or BARON MUNCHAUSEN, but just as visually dazzling. - JB

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