To paraphrase Mark Kermode (a huge fan of Gilliam), if Time Bandits is an admirable soufflé of a film, Twelve Monkeys is a big dark cake of doom. This strange, esoteric masterpiece is set in a bleak future, after the human race has been decimated by a deadly virus. Convicted criminal James Cole (Bruce Willis) is set back in time to the 1990s to ascertain the cause of the plague and if possible obtain a sample so that a cure may be found. He is instructed to focus on the Army of the Twelve Monkeys, a terrorist organisation that may not be all that they seem With its roots in Chris Markers apocalyptic short La Jetée, Twelve Monkeys is bleak to the bone, offering up pessimism and dark humour while raising all manner of questions about technology, consumerism, television and morality. Its a science fiction film driven by ideas, developing them through the brilliant performances of Madeleine Stowe, an Oscar-nominated Brad Pitt and a career-best turn from Bruce Willis. Whether you read it as an allegory for the AIDS epidemic or a dark comedy about the dangers of communication, Twelve Monkeys is enormously rewarding and its traumatic ending rivals anything in Memento. Time Travel Trivia: One scene in the film involves a hamster in a hamster wheel being seen on screen. But when the time came to shoot that scene, the hamster in question wouldnt perform and it took a whole day to shoot 10 seconds. This incident and others like it are explored in the acclaimed documentary, The Hamster Factor and Other Tales of the Twelve Monkeys.