12 Monkeys (Film) - Can you please explain?

Question

I'm normally quite good with complicated plots, but this one has me stumped.

Preggo brain maybe.

Can someone please explain the plot to me?

Thanks!

Thanks everyone so far.

I agree a good movie.

And some good plot outlines here...

I think a better question might be:

Was the scientist lady from the future that showed up on the plane at the end, 'An insuranced' or 'In insurance'.

It seems to me that Cole's final act pointed the finger at the correct villain, but as he was shot and couldn't actually kill him - she interceded to make sure the villain was stopped.

So Cole did really complete the job - but his life was sacrificed in the process. She was there as 'an insurance' that the virus would not come out if something were to happen to stop Cole from completing the mission with his own gun.

It's starting to make sense.

Answer 1

A man - a prison inmate - is sent to the past to discover what caused a virus. In the end he succeeds, meaning that a cure is finally possible, but he cannot change the past and prevent the virus being caused.

The movie does have some plot holes - the premise of the movie is that the past cannot be changed, but that makes no sense even by the story's own rules on how time travel would work - but it's not a bad movie anyway.

Answer 2

12 Monkeys Plot

Answer 3

the point i got was as a boy he seen a man get shot at an airport (him) the 12 monkeyes was a name given to brad by( him )in the loony bin .the hole movie was (him) trying to stop the viris spread that messed up the world. close but not close enough .time travel and history changes but in the end it still happened.brads dads research was the key to stop it yet brad didnt know anything about what bruce(him)was trying to stop the 12 monkeys was what brad did and bruce(him)got in right yet was to late to stop it ..i hope this helped cause this movie is out there...

Answer 4

The whole movie is about Bruce Willis' character to go back into the past to stop a plague from nearly destroying mankind as they knew it. And as the whole 12 monkey title, Bruce Willis was the 12 man to go back in time. But he failed as you saw.

Answer 5

Bruce went back in time to stop the virus from spreading, but failed. And that dream he kept having was just him as a kid seeing him. Remember at the end when he was at the airport and he gets killed. Well him as a kid was at that same airport, right there when he gets killed. So as a kid he watched his grown up self die.

Answer 6

Time traveler, goes back in time to prevent the release of a biological weapon but due to circumstances beyond his control and incomplete information about the release of the BIO...he himself is the catalyst of the end of the world.

good light movie fare but if you REALLY analyze it then all sort of time travel paradoxes would never let this actually happen.

Answer 7

Im with you on that one I hadn't a clue when I watched it and i had only necked a bottle of red wine...Get this I couldn't even understand 'Pirates' three I am told you have to see one and two or you wont get it.

Answer 8

Here are 3 outlines of the plot:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114746/plotsummary

Hope this helps!

Answer 9

Bruce Willis stars as James Cole, a convict in a post-apocalyptic future plagued by a vivid, recurring dream of a man being shot in an airport. Humans are forced to live underground, sealed from a surface contaminated with a virus that killed most of the human species in 1996–1997. The disease is believed to have arisen as an act of bioterrorism by a mysterious group calling itself "The Army of the Twelve Monkeys."

The movie has an unusual narrative style. Stowe plays a skilled psychiatrist and Pitt, in an Oscar-nominated performance, plays Jeffrey Goines, a very mentally unstable man who crosses paths with Cole on several occasions.


As a convict, Cole is forced to "volunteer" for dangerous missions to the surface in a biohazard suit, exploring a deserted Philadelphia for biological specimens. The abandoned city is now inhabited by wild animals. Almost all of humanity has been wiped out by an incurable virus, with the few survivors living in a wretched and tyrannical society deep underground. Cole proves to be a careful observer with excellent memory and is "volunteered" to participate in a more ambitious branch of the program.

The scientists of the future have invented a crude method of time travel. Travelers cannot be sure of the exact time and place to which they are sent, and they are badly disoriented after arriving at the past and upon their return. Cole and other convicts are sent back in time to discover the origin of the virus and retrieve samples. The scientists wish to study the virus in its unmutated form to enable them to produce a cure. The time travelers are asked to leave voice mail messages at a phone number monitored by the scientists in the future.

The scientists initially attempt to send Cole back to October 1996, a few weeks before the outbreak of the disease. He appears in Baltimore in April 1990 and is arrested after a violent encounter with police. Due to his incoherent story Cole is placed under the care of Dr. Kathryn Railly (Stowe) and institutionalized at a psychiatric facility who strongly feels as through she has seen Cole before. There Cole meets Jeffrey Goines (Pitt), a deranged animal rights and anti-consumerism activist. When Cole is interviewed by Railly and other doctors, he desperately attempts to warn them of the impending catastrophe and inquires about the Army of the Twelve Monkeys. He is grudgingly permitted to call the scientists' phone number, but discovers no voice mailbox.

Goines helps Cole escape the ward by providing a key and creating a major disturbance, but Cole is quickly recaptured and placed in restraints in an isolation room with no obvious possibility of escape. Cole is then returned to the future, disappearing from his locked room, and baffling Railly and the institution's authorities.

After returning to the future, Cole is interviewed by the scientists. They play a voice mail message giving the Army of the Twelve Monkeys location, saying they are responsible for the virus, but Cole denies having left that message. The scientists also show him a series of photographs from the outbreak time-period to see if any of the images are familiar to Cole from his experiences in 1990. Among the photographs is a picture of Goines at the head of a rally.

Throughout the film, Cole has recurring dreams involving a man in a ponytail running through an airport, another man in a mustache and long brown hair chasing him and being shot, and a blonde woman chasing after them and screaming. The dream varies with each instance, with the ponytail man resembling Goines in one instance.

In a second attempt to send Cole back to 1996, assured that "this time" they would get him to the correct destination, he arrives briefly in the middle of a World War I battle. He encounters Jose, a fellow inmate, who has also been sent to the past. Cole is shot in the leg while reaching toward a wounded Jose, and a moment later is propelled forward in time to the original target date, November, 1996.

Between 1990 and 1996, Dr. Railly has taken an interest in the Cassandra Syndrome. She publishes a book on the topic, citing examples of unheeded prophecies of doom dating back to the 14th century. Cole finds a poster announcing one of her lectures, and after a book-signing session, kidnaps her to aid him in finding the Army of the Twelve Monkeys. She continues to believe that Cole is delusional, and realizes from media accounts that she and Cole are the subject of a massive manhunt. However, she ignores several opportunities to escape, and begins to assist Cole in his quest. She even removes the WWI bullet from his leg when he informs her that he has been shot.

Also prominent in the news at the time is the story of a boy in Fresno, California who is trapped in a well. Cole tells Railly that he remembers coverage of that story from when he was a child and reveals to her that the whole thing is a prank, and the boy is really hiding in a barn.

Cole uses his photographic memory of the pictures he was shown by the scientists to locate the office of a bunch of well-meaning but ultimately ineffectual young animal rights activists who promote their ideas through leafleting and legal protests. Cole is sure he has found the source of the outbreak, not only because Goines is in charge of the organization but also because Goines' father is a famous virologist with access to deadly biological agents. Goines, however, became disenchanted with legal protest and formed a splinter group of twelve activists, The Army of the Twelve Monkeys, who plan more direct action such as freeing animals from zoos and research facilities. However, Goines quit the group to work at his father's lab, saying that he would personally oversee any animal testing there to insure humane treatment.

Cole and Railly track Goines to a conference at his father's mansion. Cole enters the mansion and attempts to question Goines about the origin of the virus. Goines suggests that releasing a worldwide pandemic was an idea Cole originally broached at the psychiatric facility in 1990. Cole is highly disturbed by the possibility that he was partially responsible for the pandemic and begins to embrace Railly's theory that he is delusional and has created the virus and the time-traveling story in his head. As police and dogs from the mansion approach, Railly pleads with Cole to turn himself in. Cole vanishes suddenly, leaving a surprised Railly to explain her captivity and subsequent flight to disbelieving detectives.

The detectives show further doubt in Railly's story when an analyst confirms that the bullet she removed from Cole's leg dates back to World War I. This revelation, along with the confirmation in the news that the boy in Fresno had actually been hiding in a nearby barn, causes Railly to have her own doubts. She searches through a series of WWI photographs. Jose had earned a footnote in history books as a shell shocked soldier whose hysteria had caused him to "forget" the French language entirely, replaced by an unrecognizable dialect of English. Featured in the background of a picture of Jose was Cole, reaching out to him. Now convinced that Cole's story is true, Railly returns to the office of the animal-rights activists to ask them more questions.

After returning to the future, Cole is congratulated by the scientists for bringing back vital information that will help them retake the the surface of the planet. However, Cole now believes his future experiences are hallucinations and longs to return to 1996 and be with Railly. He persuades the scientists to send him on a third mission back in time. Back in Phildelphia in 1996, he finds Railly at the animal-rights activists' office, and admits to her that he is crazy. Convinced that he is not, she calls the scientists' voice mail number, and leaves a message with what she thinks is a carpet cleaning company. When she recites her message to Cole later, they realize that it matches, verbatim, the message the scientists played for Cole prior to his second mission, and they both know that the coming plague is real. They don disguises (Cole with a mustache and a long brown wig, and Railly in a blonde wig) and make plans to fly to Key West to avoid the virus.

After Goines' splinter group frees the animals from the Philadelphia Zoo, they leave spray painted messages around the city indicating that the Army of the Twelve Monkeys "Did It", leading the future scientists to incorrectly attribute the release of the virus to Goines and his "Twelve Monkeys". Railly and Cole are momentarily heartened to discover the Twelve Monkeys' plot had nothing to do with the epidemic.

Cole, now in love with Railly and the music and open air of the pre-infection world, decides that he has done his duty to the future. At the airport, he leaves a last message telling the scientists they are on the wrong track following the Army of the Twelve Monkeys, and that he will not return to his own time. Railly sees Dr. Peters at the airport and after glancing at a newspaper picture, recognizes him as the elder Goines' assistant. She is horrified by the realization that he intends to carry the unmutated virus to every city where the disease is known to have originated. Simultaneously, Cole is confronted by Jose who, based on Cole's message, has been sent to the airport. He provides Cole with a gun just as Railly informs Cole that Dr. Peters is the culprit. After a scuffle and argument with security, Cole is fatally shot by police as he pulls the gun to stop Peters from boarding his plane. As Cole dies in Railly's arms, she returns the sad, steady gaze of a small boy. The young James Cole is witnessing his own death, the scene that will replay in his dreams in years to come.

Dr. Peters hurries away from the security area during the shooting and is able to board the plane. Seated next to Peters is the lead scientist from the future (Carol Florence). She introduces herself after some small talk with Peters: "Jones is my name. — I'm in insurance."