12 Monkeys
Nov. 15th 2005
12 Monkey's, directed by Terry Gilliam, stars Bruce Willis, Madeleine Stowe, and Brad Pitt. This movie is a wonderful science fiction film wrapped around time travel. The theme of the movie has to do with society's perception of insanity. Throughout the film the viewer is plagued with questions of whether or not the main character, James Cole (Bruce Willis) is actually from the future or perhaps is just insane and suffering from delusions. This theme is thrown in with an amazing plot of time travel.
The beginning of the movie starts off with James as a boy and he witnesses a man get shot to death in an airport. Throughout the movie James re-lives this experience over and over in his dreams. We then move to the present where James is in an underground prison and is selected to travel back in time and gather information on a virus that was unleashed when he was just a little boy. The virus killed over 6 billion people and only 1% of the worlds population survived underground. He's sent back to try and find out about the army of the twelve monkeys, which is supposedly the organization that released the virus, but ends up in 1990 instead of the target time, 1996. Cole is put into a mental hospital where he meets a psychiatrist named Kathryn Railly (Madeleine Stowe). He also meets one of the patients, Jeffrey Goines (Brad Pitt), who we later discover to be the leader of the twelve monkeys. He's then correctly sent to 1996 where he again meets Dr. Railly and starts to find information about the army of the twelve monkeys while being pursued by the police for kidnapping her. Kathryn starts to tell him that he's only having delusions and that all of this is not real. James begins to actually believe this himself and tells her he wants to turn himself in so he can get better. But it's at this point she discovers he was actually telling the truth and she quickly tries to tell him he's right and they have to find out what the army of
12 Monkey's, directed by Terry Gilliam, stars Bruce Willis, Madeleine Stowe, and Brad Pitt. This movie is a wonderful science fiction film wrapped around time travel. The theme of the movie has to do with society's perception of insanity. Throughout the film the viewer is plagued with questions of whether or not the main character, James Cole (Bruce Willis) is actually from the future or perhaps is just insane and suffering from delusions. This theme is thrown in with an amazing plot of time travel.
The beginning of the movie starts off with James as a boy and he witnesses a man get shot to death in an airport. Throughout the movie James re-lives this experience over and over in his dreams. We then move to the present where James is in an underground prison and is selected to travel back in time and gather information on a virus that was unleashed when he was just a little boy. The virus killed over 6 billion people and only 1% of the worlds population survived underground. He's sent back to try and find out about the army of the twelve monkeys, which is supposedly the organization that released the virus, but ends up in 1990 instead of the target time, 1996. Cole is put into a mental hospital where he meets a psychiatrist named Kathryn Railly (Madeleine Stowe). He also meets one of the patients, Jeffrey Goines (Brad Pitt), who we later discover to be the leader of the twelve monkeys. He's then correctly sent to 1996 where he again meets Dr. Railly and starts to find information about the army of the twelve monkeys while being pursued by the police for kidnapping her. Kathryn starts to tell him that he's only having delusions and that all of this is not real. James begins to actually believe this himself and tells her he wants to turn himself in so he can get better. But it's at this point she discovers he was actually telling the truth and she quickly tries to tell him he's right and they have to find out what the army of
Cited: Riggs, Peter J. "The Principal Paradox of Time Travel" Ratio Vol. 10 Issue 1 (Apr 1997): 48(17p). EBSCOhost: Acedemic Search Premier.