343. Twelve Monkeys (1995)

Starring: Brad Pitt, Bruce Willis, Madeleine Stowe

Director: Terry Gilliam

Running Time: 129 mins

12 Monkeys is an American film about a convict who is sent back in time from a world where the human race has been virtually eradicated by a widespread virus, in order to find out where the disease came from in the first place.

For the most part, this film was quite boring. Not only that, but it was one of the most overly complicated and messy stories I’ve seen in a film, filled with many annoying and poorly developed characters, however it does have a very good twist at the end.

Initially, I sort of knew that this storyline was not going to be particularly fascinating. It was slow-paced, and the explanations of the origins of the main aims of the storyline were very poor in my opinion, making it overall a frustrating film to watch.

The fact that the story was so complex, yet adequately presented made it incredibly confusing to follow, and it was due to this that I quickly grew bored of the film, because I was so frustrated that I was unable to really keep up with this madly intricate plot.

However, ultimately (i.e. the last 20 minutes), the film did kick off a little, and some more exciting things started to happen, which is what I expect from a so-called thriller. A bit more action, a bit more tension, culminating in a very clever twist to a continual theme throughout the movie that I really didn’t see coming, so it was a nice surprise to see.

Overall, though, this only gets a 6.8 because although the ending was great, the preceding 100 minutes don’t help the viewer at all in making a pleasurable viewing experience.