STUFF YOU GOTTA WATCH - The Adventures of Baron Munchausen

THE ADVENTURES OF
BARON MUNCHAUSEN

(1989)

With John Neville, Eric Idle, Sarah Polley, Johnathan Pryce, Robin Williams, Oliver Reed, Uma Thurman
Directed by Terry Gilliam
Reviewed by JL

If Winsor McKay were around today, he'd be Terry Gilliam. The third installment in Gilliam's trilogy of "fantasies about fantasies," THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN (having been preceded by TIME BANDITS [1981] and BRAZIL [1985]) is a reminder of how enchanting special effects used to be in the final days before the advent of CGI, and how they tended to actually serve the story when used by an artist like Gilliam. The fanciful legends of Baron Munchausen are fertile territory for Gilliam's outsized grotesqueness and Pythonesque humor. But perhaps his greatest achievement was in making Uma Thurman appear impossibly beautiful. - JL

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