It takes a certain skill to make the central character in your PG-rated adventure flick an 11yr old boy, and yet not be making a kids' film. Step forward Mr Terry Gilliam. Time Bandits bridges the phases of his career between Python and mainstream film-making*1, which turns out to be both its strength and its weakness.
The film feels a little like a companion-piece to Monty Python and the Holy Grail, with the surreal humour and roving quest carried over. It's definitely Gilliam reaching further than before (despite messrs Palin and Cleese having prominent comedic cameos), but he's not quite ready to take the strides he did in Brazil or Munchausen. There's also still the feeling that the film is a series of vignettes assembled into a screenplay, or a bare-bones story which has been padded out with previously written material.
The cast are a real mixed bunch in terms of acting (Ralph Richardson can't always have been like that, surely?), although they're all earnest and enthusiastic enough to carry the bizarre story forward. But it's really David Rappaport who shines as the Bandits' leader Randall, to the point where he's almost too good for the film. There are also some great effects and high production values at work, especially as you can often tell that there was a very finite budget available.
Despite Gilliam's stamp being all over Time Bandits, you're never quite sure who's actually in charge. Charmingly shambolic (at least some of which is intentional), like The Hobbit re-imagined by Douglas Adams…
Best line:Best line: "If I were creating a world I wouldn't have started with butterflies and daffodils. I'd have started with lasers. Eight o'clock, day one!"
Yeah, really. I've seen clips of it, of course, and even read the comic-adaptation in Return Of The Jedi Weekly back in the day. But never seen it. Until now.
I am, but I'm also glad I saw it in such close proximity to Holy Grail.
With reservations, yes.
There only bloody IS, an'all!
The film stars Kenny 'R2' Baker, Jack 'Jawa/Ugnaught/Teebo the Ewok' Purvis, Mike 'Logray the Ewok' Edmonds and Malcolm 'Un-named Ewok Warrior' Dixon.
*1 Well, as mainstream as film-making can be under Mr Gilliam's magnificent auspices...
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Ah, what can I say about The Holy Grail? I'm not sure what's more disconcerting, that this film is 40, or that I'm older than this film (not by that much, but still). Even as a lapsed Python fanatic, Holy Grail is the one of their movies*1 I've watched the least. There used to be a VHS copy in the house which was put on throughout many drunken evenings, but only really played from the point it was left at previously, so I've seen all of it in small snippets and in various stages of sobriety but it's rare that I'd watch it as a whole…
So yeah, it's not really a film, is it? More 'loosely-knotted-sketches-in-a-medieval-setting'. Some of those sketches are better than others, some go on for slightly too long after the punchline before petering out, some have no real punchlines at all, the film-quality is patchy, the audio-quality is patchy and the pacing is thoroughly unfocused.
But hey, the majority of the dialogue is pure gold and delivered in a masterful deadpan by the group. While the animated interludes barely cover the holes in the screenplay, the film structure itself plays with the form (particularly with the ongoing police involvement), taunting the audience's expectations and making fun of itself in the process. Most importantly, the script dances between childish flippancy and middle-aged hairsplitting petulance with ease, gleefully wielding the two sharpest weapons in the Python's armoury.
But that's really as much as I want to over-analyse things.
This film's meant to make you laugh; it made me laugh.
The Holy Grail isn't Python at their finest, but may well be them at their silliest…
Technical Notes: • We got the version of the film with the sing-a-long subtitles. Not a problem, but just thought I'd mention it since it wasn't advertised as such and I'm now wondering if all the anniversary screenings were of this print.
• We also got no adverts or trailers. At all. I arrived just at the beginning of the opening titles, so I didn't miss anything, but other customers were arriving five and ten minutes into the film, no doubt expecting the usual 27-minute buffer zone of promoted products and services. It would have been nice if the tickets/website/app-listing had mentioned that punctuality was essential, Cineworld ;)
For the novelty of seeing it back on the big screen, yes. Although…
…it's not a difficult film to come by in its many releases, although the Python-faithful will more than likely own several copies anyway ;)
Graham Chapman is understatedly fantastic in this.
It does. The film has seriously low ambitions, but it more-than achieves them.
Since - as much as I love it - it's not actually my favourite Python film, no I won't.
There is :)
Messrs Gilliam, Cleese, Palin, Idle & Jones voiced The Extraterrestrials in this year's Absolutely Anything, the star of which was none other than Simon 'Dengar in the Clone Wars / as-yet-unconfirmed role in The Force Awakens' Pegg.
Absolutely Anything is also, I should point out, a film which I haven't seen/reviewed since it was apparently deemed so awful that it was buried upon its release and shown in as few cinemas as contractually possible by the major chains. Ho-hum.
*1 By which I mean the three film-films. 'Holy Grail', 'Life Of Brian' and 'Meaning Of Life'. Those are the films. 'And Now For Something Completely Different' doesn't count, and neither does 'Live At The Hollywood Bowl'. But you knew that already.
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Sir Ian Disney-Pixar's newest offering is a strangely muted affair. You'd think that with one of their premium-brands like Cars, the marketing around this spin-off would be bigger. Then you watch the movie and realise why it isn't. Planes by no means 'bad', but it's missing that spark which makes parents feel a little better about shelling out £50 to take the family to the cinema in the summer holidays. There are moments in the film which belong up there with the greatest and the best of the studio's output, but they're few and far between, and padded out with… well, padding, frankly. It's sweet, it's amusing, and it's not enough to justify a full-price cinema ticket.
The majority of the blame has to lie with the mechanical nature of the story. It's told efficiently enough, but there's no real flair and never any doubt as to the outcome*1. Usually with this sort of thing the older members of the audience can snigger at jokes going over the kids' heads and revel in Easter Eggs and background detail - but that's not the case this time round. What you see is what you get. The animation is beautifully rendered, and at its best during the flight-race sequences, but pixel-geeks will have to enjoy the stylised world of Cars, because that photo-realistic feel used for Monsters University isn't present. Again, not badly done, quite the opposite, but everything has a distinctly cartoony feel.
Planes feels like it's bigger than a straight-to-video tie-in, but it never quite becomes its own film. It doesn't have the laughs of Monsters University, nor the heart of Wreck-It Ralph, and as part of a franchise which is already in small-screen territory, it doesn't have anything of its own to compensate.
I'd like to say Planes is purely for the youngsters, but the almost sold-out screening I attended was constantly punctuated with the fidgeting, talking and crying of that same crowd. And when a Disney-Pixar movie isn't keeping the five-year-olds entertained, it needs to take a long hard look in the mirror.
Pretty much.
Largely, but even that didn't feel like enough.
For my money, no.
It'll be on DVD for a fiver in under six months. It can wait.
More than likely.
I've no doubt I'll be watching it in the company of my nephew at some point.
There isn't.
During the last leg of the race, was I the only one expecting to hear gunshots and the commentator say "Looks like some Tusken Raiders are camped out on the ledge, there!"?
*1 I know there's never any doubt as to the outcome with this sort of thing, but when one of the characters in the trailer says the words "it's a compelling underdog story", you know you're in Clockwork Alley.
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
