ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Saturday, January 6, 1996              TAG: 9601100022
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 10   EDITION: METRO 
                                             TYPE: MOVIE REVIEW
SOURCE: KATHERINE REED STAFF WRITER 

'MONKEYS' OPEN TO INTERPRETATION

New Year's resolution: to start taking Bruce Willis more seriously.

And to start taking Brad Pitt less seriously, because he has obviously discovered the artistic merits of doing so himself.

The life experience that prompts these resolutions is seeing the new Terry Gilliam movie, "12 Monkeys," a dark, twisted, frightening and funny sci-fi thriller about the Apocalypse.

Maybe.

You see, it's one of those movies that will have you arguing all the way out of the theater, all the way home and maybe far into the night with your significant other/friend. The arguments sound something like this:

"But why would the scientists WANT to kill off the world's population?"

"Well, because they're not scientists. They just want Bruce Willis to BELIEVE they're scientists. They're actually in the insurance industry."

"OK. But why would the insurance industry want to kill off the world's population?"

"See, that's the part I don't get. They'd have to make a lot of payouts."

The story has many possible interpretations. Although even that is an arguable point. The facts are these: Willis is a guy named James Cole, a prisoner in a futuristic hell, who is sent back to the year 1996 to find out how the world's population was wiped out by a virus. But, oops, the future's silly scientists send him back too far - to 1990 - where he is institutionalized for his paranoid delusions.

He meets psychiatrist Katherine Railly (Madeleine Stowe) and fellow patient Jeffrey Goines (Pitt), who listen with more care to his rantings. She wants to believe him, and Goines, the looney toon, is inspired by him.

Fans of "Jacob's Ladder" will like the way the story presses past, present and future against each other and blows the possibilities wide open by suggesting - quite strongly - that maybe Coles really is crazy and that none of this is really happening. Willis charts new territory for himself with this sensitive performance, as does Pitt as the cackling, crackling (he literally buzzes) Goines.

Gilliam loves the lunacy and frames it from every possible, weird angle a la "Brazil." But it is, ultimately, no comedy.

Unless, of course, you think it is.

12 Monkeys

*** 1/2

A Universal Pictures Atlas/Classico release showing at Salem Valley 8 and Valley View Cinema. 130 min. Rated R for profanity and violence.

LENGTH: Medium:   55 lines
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO:  James Cole (Bruce Willis) kidnaps Dr. Katherine Railly 
          (Madeleine Stowe) in a scene from "12 Monkeys." color.