|
|
|
This movie features Bruce Willis' bare butt and Brad Pitt as a crazy person. That's the entire movie. Good night, everybody!
The above may be a little unfair. There was a lot more to the movie than Bruce Willis' bare butt. There was also Brad Pitt as a crazy person. It's just that there was more than the RDA of butt-shots from Willis' direction. I can clearly remember at least three, maybe four. Now Bruce is a fine actor, don't get me wrong, but I like to see him fully clothed.
Okay, enough of that. The premise of this movie is that in 1996 a virus was created at a lab and escaped, killing 5,000,000,000 people. The remaining 1% of humanity (figure from the movie) went underground to escape the deadly atmosphere while wild animals roamed our city streets.
Enter Bruce. He's a prisoner in this futuristic dystopia who is selected as a Volunteer. Volunteers go to the surface of the Earth to gather specimens of insect life, possibly because they're all that fit in the little specimen jars. The Scientists (ever notice how all sciences become one in the future?) study these insects to see how the virus is progressing on the surface. They have also created and somewhat mastered time travel.
I say "somewhat" because at first the Scientists can't control where the Volunteers go in the past. For example, the first time they send Bruce into the past, he goes to April 1990 instead of December 1996. This kind of screwed up the Scientists plans. You see, they were trying to get all of these Volunteers into 1996 so they could get a pure strain of the virus. The Scientists would study that strain, see how it mutated, and possibly create a cure so people could live on the surface again.
Back in 1990, Bruce is experiencing time-lag. Apparently being sent back in time screws with your head the first few times. Also, you have to be naked to go back in time. Why? Anyway, Bruce gets put in a psychiatric hospital because he keeps raving about how he's from the future and should be in 1996.While in the institution, he meets an insane fellow named Jeffrey. Jeffrey's father is an eminent virologist and Nobel Prize winner, so Jeff hopes he can get Daddy Dearest to spring him out. He tries to smuggle Bruce out, but Bruce gets caught. The psychologists lock him up in the padded room to keep him safe, despite the protests of his personal psych Madeline Stowe. However, Bruce disappears without a trace.
Why? The Scientists brought him back. They questioned him about what he saw, then send him back to WWI. Oops. Next time they send him to 1996. This time he's supposed to find out about the Army of the Twelve Monkeys, which the Scientists believe released the virus.
I'm on the verge of giving away too much here, so I'll just point out a few more things. Bruce is haunted by nightmares of seeing a man shot in an airport when he was a child. His psychiatrist has this strange feeling that she knows him from somewhere, which is impossible because he's just a child at the time she meets him. Also, it's great the way the opening scenes of Bruce on the surface all tie together in a neat little bow at the end.
The best part of the movie, by far, is that the Scientists don't want to prevent the virus from being released in the first place. In fact, we get to see the virus being released in Philadelphia. This is a classic "Don't do that!" moment in cinema. The Scientists have thought this through and realize that to prevent the release of the virus would cause bigger problems than they already have. They do not prevent anything, they just let it all happen so they can get the virus. Good thinking.
Cat Treats: 5
Best Scene: Giraffes running down the streets of Philadelphia
Best Line:
Washington (patient in the institution): "I find myself on the planet Ogo, part of an intellectual elite, preparing to subjugate the barbarian hordes on Pluto. But even though this is a totally convincing reality for me in every way, nevertheless Ogo is actually a construct of my psyche. I am mentally divergent in that I am escaping certain unnamed realities that plague my life here. When I stop going there, I will be well. Are you also divergent, friend?"