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Twelve Monkeys (12 Monkeys) (1995)

tomatometer

88

Average Rating: 7.4/10
Reviews Counted: 58
Fresh: 51 | Rotten: 7

The plot's a bit of a jumble, but excellent performances and mind-blowing plot twists make 12 Monkeys a kooky, effective experience.

86

Average Rating: 6.9/10
Critic Reviews: 21
Fresh: 18 | Rotten: 3

The plot's a bit of a jumble, but excellent performances and mind-blowing plot twists make 12 Monkeys a kooky, effective experience.

audience

84

liked it
Average Rating: 3.7/5
User Ratings: 350,227

My Rating

Movie Info

An intense film about time travel, this sci-fi entry was directed by Terry Gilliam, a member of the comedy troupe Monty Python. The film stars Bruce Willis as James Cole, a prisoner of the state in the year 2035 who can earn parole if he agrees to travel back in time and thwart a devastating plague. The virus has wiped out most of the Earth's population and the remainder live underground because the air is poisonous. Returning to the year 1990, six years before the start of the plague, Cole is

R,

Drama, Science Fiction & Fantasy

Mar 31, 1998

Universal Pictures

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All Critics (58) | Top Critics (21) | Fresh (56) | Rotten (7) | DVD (20)

While all of Gilliam's movies are worth seeing, there's a fair amount of his designer grimness here mixed in with the cabaret comedy.

May 27, 2011 Full Review Source: Chicago Reader
Chicago Reader
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Neither as visually compelling as Brazil nor as emotionally gripping as The Fisher King.

March 26, 2009 Full Review Source: Variety | Comments (3)
Variety
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Gilliam gives the material a lunatic poetry of his own, but remains impervious to the requirements of narrative pacing.

June 24, 2006 Full Review Source: Time Out
Time Out
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Dark and somber like Blade Runner, this sci-fi is a spectacular mess, a convoluted film with too many ideas for its own good, blending (among other things) the virus thriller with the post-apocalyptic genre.

August 12, 2005 Full Review Source: Variety
Variety
Top Critic IconTop Critic

There's always overripe method to his madness, but in the new 12 Monkeys Mr. Gilliam's methods are uncommonly wrenching and strong.

May 20, 2003 Full Review Source: New York Times
New York Times
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Bruce Willis, in an eruptive performance of startling emotional intensity, stars as Cole, a prisoner tagged for an experiment that may get him killed.

May 12, 2001
Rolling Stone
Top Critic IconTop Critic

One of the best-looking and smartest sci-fi films of the modern era.

December 19, 2012 Full Review Source: Antagony & Ecstasy
Antagony & Ecstasy

Terry Gilliam has seldom been more inventive or more compelling.

August 16, 2011 Full Review Source: Cinema Sight
Cinema Sight

Gilliam goes on to deliver a movie that is not only rich in visual detail but offers an involving, occasionally baffling storyline and builds the tension to positively unbearable levels during the final reel.

May 27, 2011 Full Review Source: Film4 | Comment (1)
Film4

Gilliam's greatest all around film.

March 4, 2011 Full Review Source: Three Movie Buffs
Three Movie Buffs

speculative fiction at its best in that it doesn't just trifle with science fiction concepts, but rather tells a grander story with characters and world disasters

March 2, 2011 Full Review Source: 7M Pictures
7M Pictures

Terry Gilliam's violent dystopian masterpiece.

January 1, 2011 Full Review Source: Common Sense Media
Common Sense Media

A dark and gritty sci-fi thriller, 12 Monkeys stands apart from other sci-fi films, due to its unique and twisted concept on the future of mankind.

July 6, 2010 Full Review Source: Matt's Movie Reviews
Matt's Movie Reviews

Gilliam's polarizing style is at its near-best...a dazzling feat of storytelling that bristles with provocative ideas. [Blu-ray]

August 12, 2009 Full Review Source: Groucho Reviews
Groucho Reviews

An Ambitious and amazing feature-length re-imagining of the classic short subject La Jetee.

July 7, 2008 Full Review Source: ESplatter
ESplatter

Gilliam has taken on a conventional Hollywood sci-fi thriller with big stars and turned it into his own rough beast.

July 23, 2007 Full Review Source: eFilmCritic.com
eFilmCritic.com

12 Monkeys seems to go down smoothly without compromising anything or dumbing itself down.

May 26, 2006 Full Review Source: Combustible Celluloid
Combustible Celluloid

The film bears watching multiple times to catch everything that's going on and, honestly, isn't for stupid people.

July 8, 2005 Full Review Source: Needcoffee.com
Needcoffee.com

Gilliam is at the top of his game in what may be his most gratifying picture.

June 1, 2005 Full Review Source: Now Playing Magazine

Terry Gilliam must have had (and kept track of) some major acid trips in his life, because his films are weird. They're also brilliant.

May 15, 2005
Reel.com

Audience Reviews for Twelve Monkeys (12 Monkeys)

An overwrought, messy, and confusing sci-fi with a silly Hitchcock nod at the end.
Terry Gilliam has one of the world's great fertile imaginations but I find that he returns to the same thematic and stylistic material again and again. 12 Monkeys is where I simply had enough of his cartoony mad holy quest time-travel grungy dystopia vision.

You know what this movie reminds me of ? That cheesy no-budget MTV video by the Police for Synchronicty II where Sting is wearing a "futuristic" costume inexplicably festooned in ribbons. "Oh no! The post-apocalyptic future will be windy and covered in torn fabric!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UlSK4WVZ9A

Same deal - stick a fork in 'em, they're done.
March 26, 2007
brooklynspo

Super Reviewer

'12 Monkeys' is easily one of the best science fiction movies of all time. I am not a huge fan of Gilliam's style and some parts of the story may get a little choppy, but this film's potency cannot be denied. Willis handles the main role superbly well, but Pitt is a freakishly good mental patient that makes it look easy. It's no wonder his performance was lauded at the Oscars. The production design is eerie and uniquely well done, and the script is entertaining and enticing. There are few flaws to be found in this film, but for those that find them, they are easily excused. '12 Monkeys' is that sometimes rare combination of a movie that is so well done and so entertaining at the same time. I could barely tear my eyes and mind from the screen.
September 13, 2012
Kase Vollebregt

Super Reviewer

    1. Jeffrey Goines: You're here because of the system.
    – Submitted by Augusta M (7 months ago)
    1. Jeffrey Goines: All the doors are locked too. They're protecting the people on the outside from us from the people on the outside who are as crazy as us.
    – Submitted by Dov D (7 months ago)
    1. James Cole: I am insane. And you are my insanity.
    – Submitted by Dov D (7 months ago)
    1. Dr. Kathryn Railly: Cassandra in Greek legend, you recall, was condemned to know the future but to be disbelieved when she foretold it. Hence the agony of foreknowledge combined with the impotence to do anything about it.
    – Submitted by Dov D (7 months ago)
    1. Jeffrey Goines: You know what crazy is? Crazy is majority rules. Take germs, for example.
    2. James Cole: Germs?
    3. Jeffrey Goines: Uh-huh. In the eighteenth century, no such thing, nada, nothing. No one ever imagined such a thing. No sane person, anyway. Ah! Ah! Along comes this doctor, uh, uh, uh, Semmelweis, Semmelweis. Semmelweis comes along. He's trying to convince people, well, other doctors mainly, that's there's these teeny tiny invisible bad things called germs that get into your body and make you sick. Ah? He's trying to get doctors to wash their hands. What is this guy? Crazy? Teeny, tiny, invisible? What do you call it? Uh-uh, germs? Huh? What? Now, cut to the 20th century. Last week, as a matter of fact, before I got dragged into this hellhole. I go in to order a burger in this fast food joint, and the guy drops it on the floor. Jim, he picks it up, he wipes it off, he hands it to me like it's all OK. "What about the germs?" I say. He says, "I don't believe in germs. Germs is just a plot they made up so they can sell you disinfectants and soaps." Now he's crazy, right? See? Ah! Ah! There's no right, there's no wrong, there's only popular opinion. You... you... you believe in germs, right?
    – Submitted by Dov D (7 months ago)
    1. Jeffrey Goines: Telephone call? Telephone call? That's communication with the outside world. Doctor's *discretion*. Nuh-uh. Look, hey - all of these nuts could just make phone calls, they could spread insanity, oozing through telephone cables, oozing into the ears of all these poor sane people, infecting them. Wackos everywhere, plague of madness.
    – Submitted by Dov D (7 months ago)

Discussion Forum

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Latest News on Twelve Monkeys (12 Monkeys)

August 13, 2012:
Terry Gilliam Learns The Zero Theorem
Gilliam plans his return to sci-fi, with Christoph Waltz attached to star.

July 30, 2012:
Chris Marker: 1921-2012
The award-winning French filmmaker, whose "La Jetee" inspired "Twelve Monkeys," was 91.

July 20, 2009:
Five Favourite Films with Duncan Jones
Duncan Jones has done the impossible -- tell a smart, engaging and entertaining sci-fi story on a...

Foreign Titles

  • 12 Monkeys (DE)
  • Twelve Monkeys (UK)
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