12 Monkeys 4K HDR

Although Chris Marker's 1962 short film La Jetee is part of the basic text in film schools across the country, the time travel photo play was generally unknown to mass audiences.  Which made its clever conceit of a man witnessing his own death as a child the perfect starting place for Twelve Monkeys (1995), a much more elaborate (and needlessly complicated) extrapolation of Marker's themes of love, loss and memory.

A post-apocalyptic "volunteer" sent back to the '90s to gather information on the disease that will destroy humanity, James Cole (Bruce Willis) is promptly locked up in a mental institution where he befriends fellow inmate Jeffrey Goines (Brad Pitt).  A genuine psychotic with nihilistic tendencies, Goines is in turn inspired by James' alternate reality, plotting to use his father's medical research facility to return the world to its true owners: the animals.  James eventually convinces his psychiatrist Madeleine Stowe) to help put a stop to the self-anointed Army of the Twelve Monkeys, and prevent the future he might have inadvertently created.

 

Director Terry Gilliam, desperate to prove his dependability to Hollywood, tweaked the story to incorporate his own eccentricities, essentially a continuation of the hand-me-down futuristic aesthetic that worked so brilliantly in Brazil.  But with a pair of box office stars - Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt - eager to elevate their status as actors rather than icons, Gilliam's job here is really just to get out of the way.  The script pays some lip service to the doomed romance illustrated in Marker's film (including an overly dramatic DePalma-like slow-motion finale), but focuses more on the Terminator-style mind games as Cole's mission impacts humanity and his own personal history.

 

Universal's marketing played up the Terminator angle as well (just check out the original artwork), perhaps nervous about the film's more intellectual ambitions.  Maybe that's why, despite the talent involved, Twelve Monkeys feels like a project by committee.  There's some good material for Gilliam to work with here, but his input seems neutered from the get go.  Willis puts in a good effort and Madeleine Stowe performs well in the rather thankless role as supportive love interest.  Pitt, however, seems so desperate to prove he's got real acting chops that he might want a chance to slip back in time for a do-over himself.

 

Arrow's new 4K Ultra HD edition starts with a brand-new 4K restoration from the original film then adds a Gilliam commentary, interviews, video appreciation, artwork archive, liner notes and a massive 90-minute plus making-of - The Hamster Factor - that brilliantly documents the production process.  

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tormented

Image
The west coast always struggled to create a creepy atmosphere on screen.  All that southern California sunshine just doesn’t lend itself to ghostly apparitions or gothic castles.  But  Tormented  (1960) gives it a good try, staging its opening scene in an abandoned lighthouse where blackmail turns into murder - and one cover up leads to another.  Director Bert I. Gordon, better known for his giant-sized - but low-budget - monster movies, works well at this level, turning in a film that delivers small scares but perhaps his most  professional finished product. Tom Stewart (played by genre regular Richard Carlson) is a fairly successful jazz pianist whose impending marriage to Meg Hubbard (Susan Gordon) will put him in an entirely new tax bracket.  Trouble is his old flame, Vi (Juli Reding), isn’t taking this lying down.  After  allowing  her to fall to her death in the opening scene, Tom is haunted by disembodied visions of his ex-lover who refuses to go quietly into the afterlife.  And
Read more

The Cat and the Canary

Image
My favorite directors have always been showoffs:  Hitchcock, DePalma, Spielberg (when he’s feeling frisky) and gonzo auteurs like Sam Raimi.  There’s just something about their cinematic ambition, constantly reminding the audience that, yes, there actually  is  someone behind the camera calling the shots.  And that directorial discontent shines through even in the early days of the medium, such as Paul Leni’s 1927 adaptation of  The Cat and the Canary .  While the rest of the industry was still learning the basics of visual language, Leni fills his frame with tracking shots, POVs and dramatic lighting that set the standard for every spook show to come!  Gathered for the reading of the last will and testament of eccentric recluse Cyrus West,  the potential heirs meet up in his decrepit mansion to discover who will inherit the estate and family jewels.  Predictably there is some petty jealousy when young Annabelle West is named the sole beneficiary…that is, if she can be proved sane afte
Read more

Impulse

Image
William Shatner, for all his ego and arrogance, always seemed comfortable being the butt of a joke.  His career outside of the  Star Trek  franchise was a bumpy road of corny TV shows and enjoyable B-movie dreck.  But he never delivered anything less than 100% “Shatner!”  Like 1974’s  Impulse , a regional drive-in quickie directed by William Grefé ( Stanley, Mako: Jaws of Death ) that casts the once and future Captain Kirk as a psychologically troubled con man whose childhood trauma leads to a string of murdered women.  After dumping the body of his last victim in a Florida canal, Matt Stone (Shatner) is on the prowl for another financial windfall, this time using a phony investment scam to entice Ann (Jennifer Bishop) into a romantic relationship.  But when Ann’s daughter, Tina, is witness to the murder of his business associate (Harold “Chop Top” Sakata), Matt has to clean up his tracks and speed up his escape plan.  That includes silencing Tina…and whoever else gets in his way.   Ta
Read more