Terry Gilliam mixes childlike adventurism and Monty Python oddity in his enjoyable TIME BANDITS, plotting the exceeding story of a gang of dwarfs who travels time stealing treasures. By accident they encounter the imaginative young boy Kevin (Craig Warnock), who being overlooked by his parents, joins the band and encounters the likes of Napoleon (Ian Holm), King Agamemnon (Sean Connery) and Robin Hood (John Cleese). The film's visualized by the dirty and organic production design that Gilliam fancies, the film has a somewhat extraneous narrative of episodic nature, and the many fanciful characters spices up the with 'brotherhood' enthusiasm. There's plenty of fresh ideas throughout, and they're always infused with the wacky, dark humor that defined the underbelly of Monty Python. Sadly though, it never gets all that funny, maybe it's because Gilliam, bearing the responsibilities of his own film, becomes too focused on the surreality, and so the best bits are drawn from fellow-writer Michael Palin? Still, the story is smashing and original, and I'll bet you'll be hard to find another film featuring dwarfs fighting a self-centered troll on a boat, which suddenly appears as the hat of a obese giant! For Gilliam fans this is a centerpiece, and for others it's mostly an oddball. The ball's on your court?
Review of Time Bandits
