12 Monkeys is a movie about a virus unleashed in 1997 (23 years too soon...) that kills off 5 billion people. James Cole (Bruce Willis) is sent back to get various biological samples in hopes of helping find a cure in the future. He cannot change the past -- there is no way to stop the virus from being unleashed.
Unfortunately, he travels too far back and is put in an insane asylum along with Jeffrey Goines (Brad Pitt). Cole's psychiatrist Kathryn Railly (Madeleine Stowe) has some sort of connection to James.
He tries to escape, gets caught, gets sent back to his present (2035, apparently), gets sent back as a second chance, gets dropped in 1917 to get a bullet hit on his leg, gets re-sent to 1996, determines Goines is the person that, along with the 12 monkeys army, will release the virus. Ah, but it's not Goines, but the associate of Goines's father. Cole dies in attempting to kill the associate, and the timeline stays intact, which is what it was going to do anyway, so this was all a waste unless this was all meant to happen in exactly the way it carried out.
It's a fun ride. Brad Pitt is great when he plays crazy, and he was great in this movie. However, the memory thing when Cole shifts back seems to be convenient for what the plot needs at the time, and he gives just enough to make everyone think he is insane except, for some reason, Railly (yeah, yeah, they have some soft of connection).
The time travel concept always bothers me as it just leads to paradoxes. In this case, the premise is you can't change anything, which means the whole point of Cole trying to stop the virus was pointless. But perhaps they knew that Cole was supposed to do exactly what he did, hence why they sent him. But what if they didn't? Wouldn't things change? Perhaps they would but would always come back to them sending him back. Thing is, that's just not tightly woven. The other thing is, what constitutes an "event". Maybe the virus would always be unleashed no matter what, but why is that fixed and other things malleable? How big of an event does it need to be that it's fixed? In the grand scheme of the universe of billions of galaxies, and billions of planets in those galaxies, why would time care that 5 billion people were affected in a planet in an insignificant arm of an insignificant galaxy?
I didn't knock the movie for that though and it's a solid 7/10 just missing that something that makes it special.
Unfortunately, he travels too far back and is put in an insane asylum along with Jeffrey Goines (Brad Pitt). Cole's psychiatrist Kathryn Railly (Madeleine Stowe) has some sort of connection to James.
He tries to escape, gets caught, gets sent back to his present (2035, apparently), gets sent back as a second chance, gets dropped in 1917 to get a bullet hit on his leg, gets re-sent to 1996, determines Goines is the person that, along with the 12 monkeys army, will release the virus. Ah, but it's not Goines, but the associate of Goines's father. Cole dies in attempting to kill the associate, and the timeline stays intact, which is what it was going to do anyway, so this was all a waste unless this was all meant to happen in exactly the way it carried out.
It's a fun ride. Brad Pitt is great when he plays crazy, and he was great in this movie. However, the memory thing when Cole shifts back seems to be convenient for what the plot needs at the time, and he gives just enough to make everyone think he is insane except, for some reason, Railly (yeah, yeah, they have some soft of connection).
The time travel concept always bothers me as it just leads to paradoxes. In this case, the premise is you can't change anything, which means the whole point of Cole trying to stop the virus was pointless. But perhaps they knew that Cole was supposed to do exactly what he did, hence why they sent him. But what if they didn't? Wouldn't things change? Perhaps they would but would always come back to them sending him back. Thing is, that's just not tightly woven. The other thing is, what constitutes an "event". Maybe the virus would always be unleashed no matter what, but why is that fixed and other things malleable? How big of an event does it need to be that it's fixed? In the grand scheme of the universe of billions of galaxies, and billions of planets in those galaxies, why would time care that 5 billion people were affected in a planet in an insignificant arm of an insignificant galaxy?
I didn't knock the movie for that though and it's a solid 7/10 just missing that something that makes it special.
