Movie Review: Time Bandits

I’ve never considered myself a big follower of fantasy films and I had only a slight interest in watching Terry Gilliam’s Time Bandits, which he wrote with fellow Monty Python member Michael Palin. However, with Mr. Gilliam’s announced presence at a recent screening I decided to give it a chance and I’m really glad I did.

The new 35 mm print of the film was stunningly beautiful, especially for a movie first released twenty-five years ago. I discovered that the film itself is a brilliantly realized story of a young boy’s adventures through time. It’s also a whole lot of fun.

One night Kevin, the child protagonist, stuck with bickering parents who are obsessed with their latest technological appliances, goes to bed only to see men on horseback leaping from his closet.

The next night the boy, eager for an encore, gets a different result as six dwarf-size men come barreling out of the closet doors. Kevin soon learns that his closet is a time warp and joins the small men who have a map of all such doors throughout history. Their plan is to rob some of history’s richest men and jump through the time warps before facing the consequences. Along the way they encounter Napoleon (a priceless Ian Holm), Robin Hood (John Cleese) and his not-so-merry men, and Sean Connery as King Agamemnon. They also wreak havoc for Michael Palin and Shelley Duvall (twice), an ogre with back problems and somehow end up aboard the Titanic. All this is done while trying to avoid the all-knowing Supreme Being, whom they stole the map from originally.

Stealing the show, though, is David Warner as the Evil Genius, a devilish character with a huge chip on his shoulder against the Supreme Being, whose decisions he humorously questions. (”If I were creating the world I wouldn’t mess about with butterflies and daffodils. I would have started with lasers, eight o’clock, Day One!”) His dialogue hilariously borders on camp and, in a movie that’s quite funny, his scenes manage to be the funniest. “I feel the power of evil coursing through my veins, filling every corner of my being with the desire to do wrong! I feel so bad, Benson!” That line and Warner’s impeccable delivery are magic.

Article Author: clydefro

clydefro is an industrious young film lover. He uses his film journal as an outlet for his ever-growing need for Billy Wilder and Nicholas Ray.

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