Review – 12 Monkeys

Though this is nowhere near Terry Gilliam’s worst effort, it’s still considerably longer and less interesting than the experimental short upon which it’s based. A hapless mook (Bruce Willis) from the future travels back to the early 1990s in search of a cure for a plague that will eventually devastate the human race. In the past – where unsurprisingly he’s taken for a nut – he falls in love with his shrink (Madeline Stowe) and meets a fellow mental patient (Brad Pitt) who may be responsible for bringing about the looming apocalypse. Pitt turns in an entertaining – if over-the-top – performance, and some of the effects are mid-budget good. But the plot bogs down in several spots as the characters slowly tumble to realizations the audience figured out some time ago. The result is uneven, the natural product of making a two-hour production out of a ten-minute movie. Mildly amusing