Anyone who loves time travel movies will absolutely love this film. Most films dealing with time travel hint at the complications that will logically occur. Back to the Future plays with the cause and effect results of actions of the time traveler, while Primer copes with the more personal complications. This film by Spanish writer/director Nacho Vigalondo dives right into the meaty elements of time travel. Vigalondo sets his main character Héctor (Karra Elejalde (They’re Watching Us)) into a web of intersecting timelines and a descending parade of motivations from various parties all of which just happen to be the same man. What Vigalondo manages here is a very complicated string of events but he handles them in a digestible way and provides his audience a fun and thought provoking film.

If you have ever watched a time travel film and wanted it to get deeper into the logical twists, this is a perfect film for you. While Vigalondo is forced to push some choices that don’t pass the smell test in order to keep his plot moving, overall this is one of the more enjoyable films I’ve seen in a long time.


Cautions: There is full female nudity and mild violence - all of which is contextual.




Related Reviews:
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Time Changer (2002)


Other Critic’s Reviews:
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Labels: film, movie review, spanish film, time travel

James Cole (Bruce Willis) lives in a future where humans have been forced to scratch a living out underground, driven there by a deadly virus. The powers that be send Cole back to 1996, the year the plague hit so he can gather evidence on its cause. They believe the virus was the responsibility of a group called the Army of the 12 Monkeys. Cole is accidentally sent back too far and winds up wasting away in an insane asylum. There he meets his doctor Kathryn Railly (Madeleine Stowe) and fellow kooky inmate Jeffrey Goines (Brad Pitt). Cole continues to time travel and interrupts the lives of Railly and Goines as he slowly closes in on the truth.

Not only is this Terry Gilliam's most accessible film but it is also his best. The biggest reason this is his best film is because he restrains his penchant for self indulgence. Like a speaker who loves the sound of their own voice, Gilliam clearly gets so wrapped up designing his films that he forgets to tell coherent stories.

This film is coherent and benefits from Gilliam's strengths. His unique visual style combined with his sense of the absurd. He slowly weaves a complicated time travel story that at first seems muddled and disjointed. The various strings of images and plot points seem to fly around wildly but are brilliantly tied together in the film's final moments. On first viewing, this ending is one of the most satisfying that I have ever seen.

The standout in this film is Brad Pitt who gleefully plays Goines as a stuttering, twitching sociopath obsessed with animal rights. Pitt clearly established many of his acting tricks from this role as you can see traces of Goines in many of the roles he's done since.

This is a great movie. It is layered and well plotted but not overly so. This makes it a smart, fun film that is a good pick if you're looking for something out of the ordinary.


Related Reviews:
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Other Critic's Reviews:
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Labels: Brad Pitt, Bruce Willis, film, Madeleine Stowe, movie review, Terry Gilliam, time travel

Finally hitting a limited release next month, this small time travel movie from Nacho Vigalondo looks like it may live up the hype its gotten. The problem with most time travel movies is that they skirt around the logical complications of such actions. This film seems to revel in them. A man accidentally gets into a time machine and travels an hour in the past. There he runs into the inventor of the machine. The inventor explains that he must not interfere with himself getting into the machine but things get complicated.







Screenwriters: Nacho Vigalondo
Director: Nacho Vigalondo
Actors: Karra Elejalde, Barbara Goenaga, Nacho Vigalondo and Candela Fernández

Labels: film, movie trailer, time travel