- Okay, here's the deal, people. Vertigo is one of the best films ever made. It's great even by Hitchcock's standards, and that's really saying something. If your film references Vertigo too overtly, it may remind the audience (or this reviewer, at any rate) that your film is not as good as Vertigo. They may even wish that they were watching Vertigo instead. For a terrific film like The Artist, such a reference is regrettable, but hardly fatal. For a far more questionable product like 12 Monkeys, it is the last and worst in a series of bad filmmaking decisions.
- I haven't seen all of Terry Gilliam's films, but the ones I have seen all share several attributes in common. One is that they are fairly creative, both visually and with respect to plotting. Another is that they are intentionally visually cluttered. Still another is that they are thematically cluttered, although that is presumably unintentional. For me, the experience is generally like being on a roller coaster, surrounded by plenty of noise, strange angles, and disorienting scenes. And remembering halfway through that I don't much care for roller coasters. I'll certainly concede that there is some art in their design, but what's the point?
- On to specifics: 12 Monkeys tells the tale of a time traveler named Cole (Bruce Willis) sent back to prevent the spread of a deadly virus that future techno-historians have associated with an underground group known as the Army of the 12 Monkeys. It appears as though this group may have been led by a crackpot extremist named Jeffrey Goines (Brad Pitt), whose own father (Christopher Plummer) runs a virology lab where animal experimentation is the norm, but nothing about this situation is particularly clear. Cole jumps in and out of time somewhat regularly, and the effect seems to be one of extreme disorientation. His dreams and/or memories suggest that psychiatrist Kathryn Railly (Madeleine Stowe) may have an important role to play in all of this, but...hey, what's with the wig?
- At this point, I feel like I've devoted about as much thought to 12 Monkeys as its creators did. If there is a moral to this story in this or any other time, I'm sure I didn't find it. Pitt and Willis, both excellent actors, spend most of their time twitching and drooling, respectively. For the record, temporary insanity officially beats out nudity as the worst side effect of time travel (time to raise the bar, Terminator franchise). Plummer is always appropriately austere, but his screen time is limited. Terrific character actors like David Morse and Frank Gorshin add some flavor to the proceedings, but the stew is never completely palatable. Monkey symbolism and painfully ugly settings abound. A better use of your time would be to watch Vertigo while pondering the fact that Hitchcock made at least thirty films better than this one.
