Twelve Monkeys DVD
by Robert Carter
THE RATINGS
Movie: *** DVD: ***1/2
THE FILM
“THE AGONY OF FOREKNOWLEDGE COMBINED WITH THE IMPOTENCE TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT...” That’s the “Cassandra Complex,” a story from Greek myth… And it’s what Bruce Willis’ character James Cole has in “Twelve Monkeys”--IN SPADES. He knows that in the year 1997 a virus is going to be purposely unleashed on the Earth--a virus that will kill 5 billion people and send Mankind literally underground. By 2035 the animals will live on the surface, while Cole and people like him endure a dark, nightmarish existence below. Cole’s life is particularly unpleasant, as he’s chosen to “volunteer” for a trip backward through time. His mission is to find the source of the virus so scientists in the future can find a cure and prevent the disaster from happening in the first place.
Cole is, basically, the flipside of Willis’ character in “The Fifth Element.” In that film a down-and-out cabbie looking for love finds it, and Saves The World. In this film, a man who just wants to “see the sky and the ocean, and breathe the air” is also given the chance to find love and to Save The World. But he’s not getting much help from his superiors, who prove that time travel is definitely an inexact science. For instance, (in scenes highly reminiscent of similar moments in the movie “Trancers,”) they dispatch Cole to 1996. Instead, he ends up right in the middle of World War One, and naked, no less. That nakedness is a metaphor, a literal illustration that he has nothing to help him but his own intelligence, ingenuity and perseverance.
The makers of “Twelve Monkeys” put a lot of effort into the visual and emotional design of the world Cole inhabits, using anything they could find to reinforce director Terry Gilliam’s vision. (The accompanying documentary covers at length how the “look” was produced and why an abandoned power plant came to represent a lot of this world of the near-future) Anyone who’s seen “Brazil” will immediately recognize Gilliam’s touch from the look of the set alone.
At one point Cole, addressing his superiors says, “I don’t think the human mind is meant to exist in two different...dimensions. It’s very confusing; you don’t know what’s real and what’s not.” After watching “Twelve Monkeys” you’ll probably agree. But it’s a mystery worth unraveling...even if you have to watch it twice to understand it all.
HIGHLIGHTS
An excellent trailer! (It gives a good sense of the atmosphere of the film and the nature of the story, without giving any of the story away)
The scene where Cole recites, word for word, a message left on an answering machine years ago (or was it just minutes ago?)--a very effective moment.
A shot in which Stowe’s and Willis’ characters look up in a store window to see their faces, caught on camera and magnified enormously on t.v.’s inside. It reveals they are, at one and the same moment, anonymous and alone in the world yet painfully easy targets for their pursuers.
Brad Pitt spent weeks at a psychiatric ward at Temple University preparing for his role. The effort shows; he turns in a bravura performance.
Although his role is small and relatively unsympathetic, it’s a pleasure to see Frank Gorshin on the screen. Besides being a talented impressionist, he’s an underrated actor.
Again, like his character in “The Fifth Element,” Willis’ first appearance in the film shows him awakening from a nightmare. The sequence he’s dreaming about--whether you guess its significance early-on or not--is beautifully tied into the storyline. (After everything else we see the conclusion of that sequence is a heartbreaker!)
There’s a marvelous moment in the accompanying documentary, featuring a city street, covered with heavily falling snow. As the camera pans to the right we see we’ve been taken in; that wasn’t snow, it was a crew member spraying a “snow substitute”--a slick example of “movie magic”!
Fans of Gilliam’s trademark animation sequences will find plenty of the ex-Monty Python member’s work on display throughout the documentary.
THE DVD
The “Twelve Monkeys” DVD is described on the cover as a “collector’s edition.” It’s definitely that! Along with the movie, presented in widescreen, you get a 90-minute documentary on the making of the film. The DVD also contains extensive production notes. In addition, the dual layer disk includes a separate audio commentary track, featuring director Gilliam and producer Charles Roven. There’s also cast bio’s and the theatrical trailer. The makers of other DVD’s could learn a lot from the presentation on this disk in particular, and Universal’s approach, in general!
NITPICKS
In the commentary track Gilliam refers to “this laserdisc.” When will directors, producers and others who make these tracks acknowledge they’re doing so for DVD as well as Laserdisc??
The DVD freezes for a painfully long moment at the 1 hour, 34-minute mark, as it makes the layer-switch.
You’re not able to select audio channels within the movie; you have to exit to the Menu.
With Christopher Plummer as well-known an actor as he is, having him affect a completely unnecessary accent seems silly.
While the movie has some comic moments, music that’s too lighthearted occasionally robs scenes of their impact; for instance, the “chase scene” (compared somewhat less than subtley to a Marx Brothers movie) in the psychiatric hospital.
We never actually get to see the time travel process. Then again, the story works so well without it we don’t really need to see it happen to believe it…
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