The Basic Plot in the form of a Haiku:
This movie is based on La Jetee, a short film from France that is comprised (except for one sequence) of still shots. I saw this film my senior year of college, in a class I took called Time (it was an interesting class, but the only reason I really took it was because I had a bit of a crush on one of the professors who taught it). I don't remember much about it (my memory is really bad at times) but the part with the airport and the kid watching the shooting and all that is directly from La Jetee.
It's been said that when a movie features Bruce Willis with hair, he's a movie star, but when he's bald, he's an actor. Die Hard and Hudson Hawk are good examples of the former, Pulp Fiction and this movie are good examples of the latter. Anyway, this movie features a bald, drooling, bloody Bruce Willis as James Cole, time traveller extraordinaire. He's "volunteered" to bop about the 20th Century to track down a pure form of a virus that killed the world in December 1996. (Which must've been freaky if you saw this movie in, say, November 1996, but seeing it in November 1998 is a bit anti-climactic.)
So the rocket scientists of the future mess up and send him to November 1990. He gets stuck there for a while, meets Brad Pitt with brown eyes, then gets back to his normal time. When they try to send him back to 1996 again, they screw up again and send him to some time in the second decade of the 20th century (what else can you call it? The time from 1960-1969 is "The Sixties", the time from 1950-1959 is "The Fifties", but what do you call the time from 1910-1919? "The Tens"?) before they get it right and send him to 1996. Apparently time travel is not rocket science.
Here is my one problem with the movie (well, my big problem with it, anyway). Almost his entire life, James Cole has had the dream of the airport, which he actually saw in December 1996. He sees the various people in the dream (the woman, the guy with the silver briefcase, the guy getting shot). The guy getting shot has long blond hair, a loud Hawaiian shirt, and white pants. Later on in his life, trying to escape to the Florida Keys in December 1996, he is given a disguise by Railly. The disguise consists of a long blond wig, a loud Hawaiian shirt, and white pants. Don't you think, after 30+ years of the same dream, he would recognize the clothes he's wearing as the clothes of the guy who was killed in the airport?
Another question: At the airport, Cole leaves a message to the Scientists, telling them that it's not the 12 Monkeys army that spread the virus. Almost immediately thereafter, Jose, the other "volunteer" appears, saying something to the effect of "they just got your message deciphered. If only they'd deciphered it sooner, they might have been able to do something..." Why didn't the scientists, when they got the message deciphered, send someone back to when the message was first received, and say "Here's what the message says."?
Another question: Why do all movies set in the future show the world as a really depressing and dirty place to live? Did the concept of 409 and Lysol die out in the future? I suppose I can tell Chris when I don't do the dishes or I leave my sewing out in the living room that I'm not being lazy, I'm just preparing for the future.
Brad Pitt received an Academy Award nomination for this role. It's my theory that every actor in Hollywood, unless they really suck, will be nominated for an Academy Award/Golden Globe/whatever at least one in his or her life.
The movie was directed by Terry Gilliam, he of Brazil and "Monty Python's Flying Circus" fame. The two movies are quite similar (Brazil is also Chris's favorite movie). Basically, life sucks, and when you don't think it can suck anymore, you die, but the cinematography is quite cool in the meantime.