Time Bandits

Finding Terry Gilliam's "Time Bandits" in the bargain bin at the local movie store was too good a deal for me to pass up, and I'm so glad I didn't! This movie is probably one of the greatest modern-day fantasies I've seen, due primarily to the amazing vision of Gilliam. I was disappointed with it on my first viewing years ago, expecting a rehash of Monty Python material, but yesterday watching it I just couldn't stop grinning. This movie knows its sources, and sends them up right.

For starters, I love how Gilliam handled the boy 'hero' in "Bandits". He's not anyone spectacular, aside from an active imagination (over and above his banal parents), and he really doesn't contribute much to the story-it simply passes him by. Most of the other characters don't like him that much even. (the "stinking Kevin" line just makes me howl!) He's also not that cute, which is a rarity with child actors and which sinks most films with them. Plus, the danger of the story doesn't stop at him, as shown by the rather sobering finale. No 'It's all a dream' type cop-out here. Having studied the form of the fantasy as explained by Tolkien myself, Gilliam obviously understands how it works.

Of course, because it works, "Time Bandits" is just plain fun. The plot's out of nowhere-just kind of trips along through time and space and stranger things. Napoleon as a height-obsessed drunkard? Robin Hood as the aloof, unlikely leader of a band of violent, too-merry men? Agamemnon as the ideal father figure? It's all here, plus the technocratic, pyromaniac "Evil" vs. the Supreme Being. Ah, you always knew He was an staid Englishman in a pinstripe suit, didn't you? ("Dead? No excuse for laying off work.")

Perhaps it's not Gilliam's masterpiece, as "Brazil" could be argued for that...though one could also argue "Time Bandits" gives a bleaker perspective through the contrast of the fun and whimsy. If our reality is depressing now, and Kevin's was, is the fulfillment of our fantasies any better? Perhaps Randall said it best himself - "Heroes, bah! What do they know about an honest day's work?" :-)

Even though the movie is bookended by chaos, and fueled by a sort of demented Terry Gilliam charm (not to mention the dark-but-funny violence) "Time Bandits" is really a kid's movie. And that's what I love about it: it's just a young boy stealing away on an adventure from his mundane existence. Add to that the trappings of a magical cosmic map, the gallop through the Napoleonic Wars, Ancient Greece and Medieval England, and a cadre of greedy dwarfs and it's a lot of fun. Even with that cast of familiar faces, David Warner handily steals the movie as Evil (like Sark from "TRON", only having more fun with it). And I love that the Supreme Being turns out to be a cheeky old British guy.

It also ends with some sort of statement about modern technology, but that's just a last-minute zinger. What this really proves is that there's fun to be had in cult movies, and Sean Connery is awesome.

7/10

Terry Gilliam's striking imagery, masterful use of the wide angle lens, distinct camera angles, and his unique sense of humor (finely honed during his days with Monty Python) can all be found in Time Bandits. These elements are why Gilliam is one of my favorite filmmakers. There is no one else like him. I feel he vastly improved with his later films, but Time Bandits is still a spectacular experience.

A particular thing about Time Bandits that impresses me is the toys and pictures seen in Kevin's room at the beginning of the film are all represented with their real-life counterparts in later scenes. It's a brilliant touch. It's part of the movie's over-all theme of an imaginative boy, starved for attention due to his loveless, neglectful parents, who goes on an adventure through time. Did it really happen, or was it all just inventions of his imagination? The answer is not needed, but the question it raises is a touch of great filmmaking.

Also, Time Bandits should be commended for being the first, and one of the only, films to show little people as real people. They are historically exploited or stuck in silly costumes throughout entire movies, but here, they are given the chance to really act, and not be treated as glorified props. I hope Peter Dinklage of Game of Thrones fame holds great respect to Time Bandits, and acknowledges the doors this movie opened for little people in the entertainment industry.

I give Time Bandits a 7 out of 10. It's a good movie, but it doesn't reach the greatness that he later achieved with Brazil, Munchhausen, the Fisher King, and Twelve Monkeys. Still, for those who haven't seen it, it's definitely worth a watch.

One final note: most of the camera angles in Time Bandits are low. A perfect touch, considering the small stature of all the lead characters. Many filmmakers forget this with movies told from a child's perspective.

After submerging myself finally into Time Bandits, perhaps too late (or too soon, if I had kids maybe it would've been a different experience), I found it reminded me of a live-action version of one of these animated adventures I would watch on TV as a kid, where a child would be brought into a fantastical universe away from his dull, ordinary existence, with strange friends/characters, and then go on adventures. In a couple of small ways its even palatable to the Terry Jones/Jim Henson collaboration Labyrinth. But the difference here is that it is fused with some more mature humor and some darker elements. In a way this is what the college-age fans of Monty Python in the 70's must have seen as the perfect film to take their kids to see in the 80's. Terry Gilliam, co-writer/director (co-written with fellow Python Michael Palin), knows how to entertain, and many sequences are terrific. It's a shame that some of them were not as much, and a little spotty. The sheer zaniness though, and the will for Gilliam to keep throwing visual gags and intense, fun imagery, keeps it never boring.

It's without a doubt that Time Bandits is in a sense a more 'mainstream' (err, accessible) picture than many of Gilliam's other works, mostly because it tries to reach into the imagination in all people, young and old. Kevin (Craig Warnock, a good straight-character for the audience amid all the ruckus), is in a land of his own imagination, until a group of pillaging dwarfs (played by the likes of David Rappaport and Kenny 'R2-D2- Baker) traveling through time with a stolen map with gaps through time provided by a crazed 'supreme being'. They visit Napoleon (Ian Holm, an ingenious role), Robin Hood (John Cleese), and by accident King Agamemnon (Sean Connery, an unexpectedly cool role). But when the Evil Genius (David Warner, one of the funniest performances of the film) knows they have it, he'll do anything to lure them in to get it from them.

This leads to a climax that in a darker, more scrambled way, reminded me of the climax of Blazing Saddles. There, like in this film, the story almost runs off the tracks, as many parts of history come into play with the forces of good versus evil. It does come to a satisfying conclusion, but in a small way is almost too much. Pauline Kael's comment that "the film suffers from a surfeit of good ideas" is not without some truth. There are so many jokes, so much imagination, so much creativity, its like a tipping scale that balances back and forth, rarely in the middle, of how affecting it is. For children, therefore, it is a sure bet, because children (for all of the modern corporate grabbing and testing of material) thrive on material like this, where the appearance of a comedian like Michael Palin in two separate, hilarious roles, doesn't matter as much as the sheer one-of-a-kind nature of everything put together. Some of the film is violent (as when the Evil Genius blows things up randomly), but always like a cartoon; one can sense the animation influence in the style's bones.

And that is what separates this film from the other films and shows I saw as a child, that there is this need on the part of the filmmaker not to stick to anything really expected, while still in a 'once upon a time' framework. Some jokes may not be funny to kids until they get older, but images like the giant trudging slowly through the water, the dwarfs in a peril in the cages, the pageantry of the Greek sequences. It's all delightful, but also a little overwhelming, and of course a bit much on the first go-around.

For my money, Terry Gilliam is one of the more innovative, creative, and fantastical directors of the last two decades. His films easily bear his stamp of absurdist humour, witty dialogue, sheer fantasy, dream-like sequences, and always a generous dose of black comedy. Time Bandits is certainly no exception, but rather a stepping stone for greater works such as The Fisher King and the wonderful Brazil. The film tells the story of a group of dwarf-like "crooks" who leave their jobs with God(the Supreme Being) for a life of crime via a map they have "stolen" from their job place. This map holds all the secrets to time holes in the fabric of creation. Thus the bearers of the map can go forward and back in time as they please. They use the map to steal, at which they have little skill, and become rich, at which they miserably fail. Gilliam transports them and us through time to meet such interesting notables as Robin Hood, Napoleon, Agammenon, and the Evil Genius(devil-like entity). The film is grand in its scope and still wanting, for it is tackling a story of epic proportions. Still, Gilliam delivers a pretty good film both visually stunning in certain sequences and brimming with philosophical questions such as the necessity of evil and the election of choice in life. The film is also very funny in many parts, due in large part to a great cast. The protagonists are all quite good. John Cleese plays as likable a Robin Hood to be seen with his almost overly polite manner. The best performances go to Ian Holm, playing a drunken Napoleon obsessed with his size, David Warner, playing the malevolent Evil Genius with relish, and lastly to Sir Ralph Richardson, playing the Supreme Being like a bureaucrat concerned with balancing payroll and the like. Gilliam explores the bureaucratic mentality with even more scope in his Brazil. All in all, Time Bandits is a fun and entertaining picture.