“12 Monkeys”

Movie Review

Terry Gilliam's 1995 American science fiction film 12 Monkeys, starring Bruce Willis, Madeleine Stowe, and Brad Pitt with Christopher Plummer and David Morse in supporting roles, was inspired by Chris Marker's 1962 short film La Jetee. The action is set in Philadelphia and Baltimore, which is where the majority of the film was shot. Brad Pitt's performance earned him a Golden Globe Award and an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. The movie received nominations and won a number of categories at the Saturn Awards.

In 1996, a horrible virus was introduced that nearly wiped out the entire human race and forced the survivors to live underground. The virus is believed to have been started by a group called the Army of the Twelve Monkeys.

James Cole is a prisoner in 2035 who resides in a compound below Philadelphia. In exchange for a lighter sentence, Cole is chosen to be sent back in time to locate the virus's origin in order to aid doctors in discovering a cure. Cole has unsettling visions about a foot chase and an airport shooting.

Cole comes in Baltimore in 1990 rather than 1996 as originally planned; upon Dr. Kathryn Railly's diagnosis, he is detained and committed to a mental institution. There he meets Jeffrey Goines, a mentally ill man with anti-corporatist and environmentalist ideals. A group of doctors interrogate Cole, who attempts to explain that the virus breakout has already occurred.

Cole is put under sedation and placed in a cell during an attempt to escape, but he vanishes and awakens in 2035. The scientists question Cole while playing a garbled voicemail call that claims to link the Army of the Twelve Monkeys to the virus. Photos of various suspects, including Goines, are also displayed to the man. The researchers give Cole one more chance to finish his task and return him to the past. Cole stumbles across a battlefield in World War I, is wounded, and is subsequently transported to 1996.

A group of scientists listens to Railly's speech on the Cassandra complex in 1996. Railly encounters Dr. Peters at the book signing that follows the lecture, and he informs her that while apocalyptic alarmists give the reasonable picture, the real madness is humanity's ongoing environmental degradation.

Flyers advertising the event lead Cole to the location, and when Railly leaves, he kidnaps her and makes her drive him to Philadelphia. Before they start looking for Goines, they find out that he is the leader of the Army of the Twelve Monkeys. When confronted by Cole, Goines claims that he was never a part of the gang and that Cole had stolen the plan to wipe out humanity in 1990 from his father, Dr. Leland Goines, a virologist.

Cole is taken back to 2035, where he tells the scientists that he is still committed to carrying out his objective. However, he informs Railly that he now thinks he is crazy as she had suggested when he runs into her again in 1996. In the meantime, Railly has found proof of his time travel, which she shows to him while still assuming he is sane. Before the pandemic starts, they plan to leave for the Florida Keys.

They learn that the epidemic was not caused by the Army of the Twelve Monkeys; rather, the group's principal act of protest entailed liberating animals from a zoo and imprisoning Goines' father inside an animal cage. Cole leaves the scientists a message at the airport informing them that he will not be coming back and that they should not join the Army of the Twelve Monkeys. Jose, Cole's former cellmate, confronts him and commands him to obey. Cole is given a weapon by Jose.

Railly sees Dr. Peters at the airport and identifies him as Goines' father's assistant after reading about him in a newspaper. Peters is preparing to set out on a tour of numerous cities that correspond to the areas where the virus epidemics have occurred.

Cole pushes his way past a security barrier to catch up with Peters. Cole pulls a revolver, and the police shoot him. Railly immediately starts to search the audience as Cole lies dying in her arms. A young James Cole, who is watching the sight of his own death and will see it again in his dreams for years, is finally able to make eye contact with Railly. Peters, who is on the virus-infected plane, is seated next to Jones, a scientist from the future, who remarks that her position is "insurance." Cole, a small boy, stands on the ground outside the airport and watches the plane take off.

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