I came across this title when searching the extensive collections of sci-fi time travel films. I dare say that I was not initially impressed with the things I found, but the actual blurb won me over. I found this on DVD for £4.99 retail which was a bargain.The film begins with what can be described as "sesame street Colouring". The camera was obviously low budget, so the colours all appear murky and bleed into each other. This would have been where I would have stopped watching which would have been a real mistake.The premise of the film quickly takes hold, and you learn about the characters in a very alternative fashion. The film is separated into sections that have very little connectivity until the storyline takes hold. This is where the film comes into its own.The film is part colour part black and white, giving the indication of which time period you are in. This is a really simple way of doing this but it is so effective. The slices of the film really come into place at the end and you realise what a masterpiece of direction this actually is. This really would have been excellent with a big screen budget if that could have been done without dumbing down the plot (probably not with the state of films today).Give this film a chance, it is so cheap to buy, just slightly more than renting Navy Seals which would be a waste of good money. If you give the first 20 minutes a chance you should enjoy it. (don't get drunk before, you might miss out on the plot).7/10 (10/10 storyline, 9/10 entertainment value, 5/10 production value). TWELVE MONKEYS WITHOUT THE MONEY BUT MORE PLOT.

I just bought this on DVD and I totally don't get the comment by Total Film, that is supposed to hook you on. A "Lesbian 'Pi'-like sci-fi flick" totally does not capture the essence of this movie. If anything, these women are bi-sexual but it has absolutely nothing to do with the movie.SPOILER AHEAD: It is a low-budget film, but the only time I was disturbed by that, was Ophelia's "tail". It's also not about the science - in fact - I don't believe any concept of time-travel myself. If you just assume the theory, than this movie has a nice way of portraying the chaos a human-being would be confronted with and with all the twists in the timeline, in the end you feel like it has come full circle. However - when you think about it, it presents the same paradox that plagues any time-travel concept: it couldn't have happened to begin with, but to end like that it needed to have happened.I also agree with Michael Bennet Cone, about the way the women are portraid here and I really dig Isaac's "Oh well, I'm in this s*** somehow somewhere and I think I get it, but at least let's have some fun" attitude. All in all, it kept me interested to the very end.

I saw this film two or three years ago at one of the San Francisco film festivals. I loved it. I told everyone about it, and have had to wait this long time before I found it on DVD.It is expertly written and directed, a phenomenal film. It cloaks any budget constraints in a black-n white film noir look and feel, very convincing, all time periods feel authentic (good costume work - also good set designs). The time travel elements are well told, especially for such a complex underlying concept. There's nothing condescending or overbearing the way you found in Matrix (no endless monologues explaining everything). Rather, it's concise in it's storytelling, told visually and thematically and through action. Really nice, a fun romp through time, very catchy. All actors were well above what I've come to expect, even - or maybe especially - from Hollywood. No one really let the ball fall. I recommend this to anyone who loves film noir or science fiction - thriller stories.

I'd highly recommend this for noir fans--a great twist on the genre, with its additions of time-travel and backwards-to-forwards plotline and lesbianism. The first scene, naturally, makes you say, "How'd that happen?" and the rest of the story is how you saw what you saw in the first minute. Shows "12 Monkeys" what it could have been if it had had any guts at all.