Army of the Twelve Monkeys, The

Just finished watching Jorge’s latest opus.

To give myself some perspective, I watched this edit with my Father-inlaw, who has never seen the original movie.
(heck, he says he has never seen a Bruce Willis movie either… unbelievable!)

As an avid fan of the original, I was very curious to get an outsider’s point of view…
Did he understand the narrative?
Were there any points of confusion?
Did the story entertain?

Because in the end, no matter how fancy or technical the edit may be, it has to about Story and Entertainment Value.

So what did my 67 year old, former school teacher and principal, Father-inlaw think?

He loved it.

The madness of the movie totally captured his attention and would not let go. In fact, he made me pause the movie any time he had to leave the room, he did not want to miss a moment of the story.

Afterwards, I quizzed him if had any questions about the movie or if he felt there were any weak areas. He shook his head resoundingly “NO”, he said as far as he could tell it all worked for him and he had no idea what might have been edited in or out of the movie.

So for me, that is an awesome review! When a non-movie watcher will sit through an entire edit
and be entertained by the new narrative, you know you have winner on your hands.

From, my perspective, I would have to agree. This edit really works well throughout.

The new timeline is smooth, and works better than the original. I really enjoyed the new colour treatment, it gave the movie a very stark quality, and heightened the entire narrative for me.

The new aspect ratio works really well, though I did notice in the Chris Plummer/David Morse lab scene that their heads seemed very cut off in the close up.

I think all the cuts worked, though I sort of missed the phone call.

If I had to nitpik, [SPOILER WARING] I think I would have ended the movie on Young Cole
in the airport parking lot, and not have travelled to the future at all, as it would have stayed with the original premise and kept the future more a mystery. But that’s just me.

Another fine piece of work by Jorge. As always, the techinical aspects are superior.

I would give this wonderful edit a solid 9.5/10.

***This review contains spoilers ****

Twelve Monkeys is one of Terry Gilliam’s best movies IMO. It is also a really working example how his style of mixing genres and working on several stages at the same time (odd, funny, dramatic, thrilling) kind of works in perfection.
In the end I as the audience had seen a movie that was fascinating, amusing, emotional and tense at the same time. Not all popcorn cinema, but highly artistic.
Jorge’s Army Of The Twelve Monkeys is a more sorted version that only plays in 1990 and 1996 (with an ending int he future) and it is chronological. It also contains a lot less oddities, but left in quite a few, making these stick out even more than they did before (like the madness of Goines). While trying to focus on a more streamlined and less odd version, the flow of the original is not happening, but replaced by a very different, still odd mood. The struggle of Cole that really kept the movie going falls flat, the superb emotional finale falls flat, but Madeleine Stowe’s character suddenly becomes the leading role and the entire movie is more the experience of her adventures with Cole.
As that the fanedit works and presents the audience with a very different movie, which is wonderfully executed and pulled through.
I consider the original the much better movie, but for a different version this one was truly interesting and kept me entertained. It is a fabulous and consistent effort to truly change a movie experience.
The ending in the future, which is actually the beginning of the original did not work too well for me. The intention, when Cole finds the sign was clear, yet emotionally nothing happened and the credits running were confusing.

Technical notes:
The pinkish coloring and the blurry image quality were not working so well for me. The reformatting was most of all perfect, except for some very few scenes, which were too obvious and brought the reformatting to my attention (example: taxi driver and a few face close-ups).

Rating:
This was good. I recommend it. Very well done, Jorge.

This review is based on my opinions and my personal viewing experience. Nothing is meant as an attack. Spoiler warning.

I’ll keep it short ‘n sweet.

Loved it!!! Damn cool, once again.
Loved the “then” and “now” aspect.
The new Perspective worked great for me.
Audio seemed perfect to me.
LOVED the reframing, this film looks great in scope!
ABSOLUTELY TOTALLY F’ING LOVED the new color treatment, totally awesome! it’s like looking at a beautiful flower in full bloom. Bravo on that one my man!
A couple things baffled me at first, but i soon caught on. No i’m not gonna mention them for spoiler purposes.

9 out of 10!