TIME BANDITS
(1981)Kevin and the Time Bandits: Craig Warnock, Kenny Baker, Malcolm Dixon, Mike Edmonds, Jack Purvis, Tiny Ross
Also with: John Cleese, Sean Connery, David Warner, Ralph Richardson, Michael Palin, Shelley Duvall, Ian Holm, Katherine Helmond, Peter Vaughan
Directed by Terry Gilliam
Reviewed by JB
The strength and weakness of TIME BANDITS, written by Monty Python's
Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam, is that it looks and feels like
several short movies in one, much like the Python film THE MEANING OF
LIFE. As with any episodic film, you are bound to dislike at
least one section, so that the film will either start off poorly, sag
in the middle or come to a lame conclusion, depending on your personal
tastes. The plot
- a handful of celestial midgets have stolen the Map of Time from The
Supreme Being and are now looting their way through history - allows
Palin and Gilliam to spoof on historical epics and fantasy films to
their hearts delight, and for director Gilliam to create his usual
(that is, unusual)
vast
visual
worlds for his actors to romp about upon. TIME BANDITS takes
a
half
hour too
long to really kick in, with the opening Napoleon section being the
film's most humorless (for me - personal taste, you know), but the rest
of the trip makes up for it.
The performance highlights include John Cleese as an ultra polite Robin
Hood, Sean Connery as King Agemennon and David Warner as "The Evil
One". And of course, Ian Muir as one of giantest giants you'll ever
see. A visual delight, like most Gilliam films, with generous
doses of Pythonesque humor, TIME BANDITS is almost a companion piece to
THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN with young Craig Warnock filling in
for BARON's Sarah Polley as the child from whose point of view we see
it all. 
- JB
http://thestuffyougottawatch.com
Copyright © 2008 John V. Brennan, John Larrabee