Twelve Monkeys 1995

Susan Stark, Detroit News: Overwrought. Read more

Janet Maslin, New York Times: There's always overripe method to his madness, but in the new 12 Monkeys Mr. Gilliam's methods are uncommonly wrenching and strong. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: Mystifying, intriguing, even infuriating, it shows what happens when an unconventional talent meets straightforward material. Read more

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader: While all of Gilliam's movies are worth seeing, there's a fair amount of his designer grimness here mixed in with the cabaret comedy. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: [Gilliam] turns a world falling apart into a funky, dizzying spectacle. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: A consistently engaging motion picture. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: As an entertainment, it appeals more to the mind than to the senses. Read more

Scott Rosenberg, Salon.com: What's remarkable about 12 Monkeys is that, despite its decade-hopping abandon, the film makes a chilling kind of narrative sense. Read more

Peter Stack, San Francisco Chronicle: A potent glimpse of doom with a jarringly familiar ring. Read more

Geoff Andrew, Time Out: Gilliam gives the material a lunatic poetry of his own, but remains impervious to the requirements of narrative pacing. Read more

Variety Staff, Variety: Neither as visually compelling as Brazil nor as emotionally gripping as The Fisher King. Read more

Emanuel Levy, Variety: Dark and somber like Blade Runner, this sci-fi is a spectacular mess, a convoluted film with too many ideas for its own good, blending (among other things) the virus thriller with the post-apocalyptic genre. Read more