Twelve Monkeys

A glorious dystopian downer, ready-made for years of fan-boy dissection. For once, the packagers didn't outsmart themselves: a creative match made in movie heaven--director Terry Gilliam (BRAZIL) plus screenwriter David Webb Peoples (BLADE RUNNER)--yielded an instant cult classic that's everything you wanted it to be.

Perhaps more important, TWELVE MONKEYS is none of the things you hoped it wouldn't be: it's a time-travel movie that doesn't get bogged down in time-travel technicalities, a killer-virus movie without Dustin Hoffman or that adorable monkey (title notwithstanding, there are no monkeys at all), a Brad Pitt movie in which Hollywood's leading...