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Time Bandits
Terry Gilliam's deranged, delightful foray into (and out of) world history. Starring John Cleese, Michael Palin and Sean Connery
Schoolboy Kevin (Craig Warnock) awakes to find a black knight smashing through his bedroom wardrobe followed by a clumsy band of renegade dwarves (including Baker, the man inside R2-D2). They've discovered a map of the universe's worm holes - the portals of time travel - and are looting the past for rich booty, hotly pursued by Ralph Richardson's brilliantly down-to-earth Supreme Being and David Warner's camper-than-Christmas Evil Genius. Warnock joins the merry throng, and together they drop in on such legendary figures as Robin Hood (Cleese), who turns out to be a hopelessly vague artisto, Napolean (Holm) who steals the show as a hilarious drunk obsessed with history's little men, and Agamemnon (Connery) who's kind but ineffective. Written by Palin, Gilliam's second solo outing (after Jabberwocky) is a deranged history lesson for over-intelligent kids, rich in visual extravagance and with enough dark, anarchic gags about fruit and philosophy to keep any Python fan happy. Underlying it all is an intelligent and effective message about the pettiness of people's dreams and the pointless materialism of modern culture. It's magnificently bizarre and handled with all the lightness of touch and dazzling visual sensibility (in spite of a tiny budget) you'd expect from a Gilliam film. The director has claimed it should be seen as the first part of a trilogy that includes the seminal Brazil and glorious folly The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. Mischievous sod. Verdict It's a film for kids that adults really will enjoy. A feast for the eyes with great gags and an intelligent and well realised morality. Great. |
