The sci-fi genre... aliens, space travel, phenomenons... and time travel. That''s what
12 Monkeys is about: time travel,
although it''s not as sci-fi related as it appears. Bruce Willis is a time traveler, which makes
12 Monkeys a sci-fi movie, but the entirety of it is not as complex as one would think. In fact, every scene that takes place in 2035 is just a souped-up shell that makes
12 Monkeys look a lot more technical than it is.
In 2035, all the "volunteers" are in tiny, wire cages and are lifted up and out with cables. The world above is devoid of human life, but wild animals like bears, tigers, and spiders run wild, and below is where the humans live. For some reason, the entire underground system looks like an alien spacecraft, for reasons unknown - it does not look like humans constructed it. This was just the first attempt at making a movie look more interesting than it really was.
Bruce Willis travels back in time - too far back in time - and is admitted to a mental hospital. All the people there are totally wacky, including Brad Pitt, who begins to get annoying after three minutes. I don''t really understand why they chose to have Pitt, who has more to do with the movie than at first glance, be a mental patient, unless it''s to express his psychotic nature. However, other movies have made psychotic characters effective without introducing them in a mental hospital.