My first reaction to watching this film was dafuq did i just see?

How I got to watching the movie is a story weirder than the movie. The girlfriend while deciding what we should watch animatedly asked me if I’d seen a particular movie. And I hadn’t. Few days forward, while I was on my movie watching spree I stumbled upon ’12 Monkeys’ on Netflix. This movie was always on my watch list, I have it on my hard drive in the folder of ‘psychological thrillers to watch’. So I started watching it. Halfway through I told me girlfriend what I’m up to and this is what transpired…

Yeah, but I wanted to see it anyway so I did. Anyhoo, here’s my review of the movie.

It was unexpected, yes it was made in the 90’s and a few years before Brad Pitt would establish himself as a star and before Bruce Willis would typecast himself. This movie is out of their experimental phase. And boy was it fun to see the two stars go out of their element. Mr. Willis was superb as the time-travelling disillusioned information gatherer, while Brad Pitt was A+ with his character and his monologue ramblings. Madeline Stowe was mesmerising, yet her character seemed to eager to jump to the other side of the fence.

The movie follows the tangent of going back in time to change the future. But with most movies in that genre, the protagonist affects the past in a way that sets him on the path to the future he was supposed to prevent in the first place.

His travails establish towards the end that his paranoia and quest for information inspired an apocalypse junkie to cause the destruction of mankind. The build to his recurring nightmare is well-paced as the pieces of the puzzle come together in the climax.

This movie has no resolution as such, it’s just a story that’s set in a dystopian future constantly jumping to and fro the present. It’s a better viewing in hindsight knowing the career trajectory of Brad Pitt and Bruce Willis. Fans of grunge time-travel movies should give this a watch. Others should watch it for the thrill regardless.

3.5/5

What’s your opinion of the movie? Let me know in the comments section. Ciao!