Twelve Monkeys (1995)

An unknown and lethal virus has wiped out five billion people in 1996. Only 1% of the population has survived by the year 2035, and is forced to live underground. A convict (James Cole) reluctantly volunteers to be sent back in time to 1996 to gather information about the origin of the epidemic (who he's told was spread by a mysterious "Army of the Twelve Monkeys") and locate the virus before it mutates so that scientists can study it. Unfortunately Cole is mistakenly sent to 1990, six years earlier than expected, and is arrested and locked up in a mental institution, where he meets Dr. Kathryn Railly, a psychiatrist, and Jeffrey Goines, the insane son of a famous scientist and virus expert.

Keywords: 1910s, 1990s, 2030s, 20th-century, 21st-century, abandoned-theater, activism, activist, airplane, airport

Genres

Taglines:

Quotes:

James Cole: This is a place for crazy people. I'm not crazy.::Dr. Owen Fletcher: We don't use the term "crazy," Mr. Cole.::James Cole: Well, you've got some real nuts here.

Jeffrey Goines: ...and if you forget one thing, I will have you shaved, sterilized, and destroyed!

Jeffrey Goines: There's no right, there's no wrong, there's only popular opinion.

L.J. Washington: I don't really come from outer space.::Jeffrey Goines: Oh. L. J. Washington. He doesn't really come from outer space.::L.J. Washington: Don't mock me my friend. It's a condition of mental divergence. I find myself on the planet Ogo, part of an intellectual elite, preparing to subjugate the barbarian hordes on Pluto. But even though this is a totally convincing reality for me in every way, nevertheless Ogo is actually a construct of my psyche. I am mentally divergent, in that I am escaping certain unnamed realities that plague my life here. When I stop going there, I will be well. Are you also divergent, friend?

Jeffrey Goines: Telephone call? Telephone call? That's communication with the outside world. Doctor's *discretion*. Nuh-uh. Look, hey - all of these nuts could just make phone calls, they could spread insanity, oozing through telephone cables, oozing into the ears of all these poor sane people, infecting them. Wackos everywhere, plague of madness.

Jeffrey Goines: There was this guy, and he was always requesting shows that had already played. Yes. No. You have to tell her before. He couldn't quite grasp the idea that the charge nurse couldn't make it be yesterday. She couldn't turn back time, thank you, Einstein! Now, *he* was nuts! *He* was a fruitcake, Jim!

[James Cole found a spider and knows he's got to take it with him, let's it crawl over his hand while deciding what to do with it]::Jeffrey Goines: You know what crazy is? Crazy is majority rules. Take germs, for example.::James Cole: Germs?::Jeffrey Goines: Uh-huh. In the eighteenth century, no such thing, nada, nothing. No one ever imagined such a thing. No sane person, anyway. Ah! Ah! Along comes this doctor, uh, uh, uh, Semmelweis, Semmelweis. Semmelweis comes along. He's trying to convince people, well, other doctors mainly, that's there's these teeny tiny invisible bad things called germs that get into your body and make you sick. Ah? He's trying to get doctors to wash their hands. What is this guy? Crazy? Teeny, tiny, invisible? What do you call it? Uh-uh, germs? Huh? What? Now, cut to the 20th century. Last week, as a matter of fact, before I got dragged into this hellhole. I go in to order a burger in this fast food joint, and the guy drops it on the floor. Jim, he picks it up, he wipes it off, he hands it to me like it's all OK. "What about the germs?" I say. He says, "I don't believe in germs. Germs is just a plot they made up so they can sell you disinfectants and soaps." Now he's crazy, right? See?::[James Cole finally takes the spider into his mouth, Jeffrey Goines is either too deep into his talk or unimpressed by this and continues his talk as if nothing happened]::Jeffrey Goines: Ah! Ah! There's no right, there's no wrong, there's only popular opinion. You... you... you believe in germs, right?

James Cole: Look at them. They're just asking for it. Maybe the human race deserves to be wiped out.::Jeffrey Goines: Wiping out the human race? That's a great idea. That's great. But more of a long-term thing. I mean, first we have to focus on more immediate goals.

Dr. Kathryn Railly: Cassandra in Greek legend, you recall, was condemned to know the future but to be disbelieved when she foretold it. Hence the agony of foreknowledge combined with the impotence to do anything about it.

James Cole: Oh, wouldn't it be great if I *was* crazy? Then the world would be okay.