Time Bandits [Blu-ray]
Young Kevins daydreams burst into astonishing and hilarious life when a band of time-traveling little men come crashing through his bedroom wardrobe and carry him off on an unbelievable crime spree, weaving through the greatest and strangest moments of history. The pint-sized plunderers filch from a neurotic Napoleon (Ian Holm), a dim-witted Robin Hood (John Cleese) and a heroic King Agamemnon (Sean Connery), leading to a showdown with the dark forces of Evil (David Warner)…all while keeping just one precarious step ahead of the wrath of The Supreme Being himself!Producer/Director/Co-writer Terry Gilliam (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Brazil) teams with many of his comic-genius cohorts from Monty Python to bring this laugh-out-loud modern fairy tale-adventure to life.
User Ratings and Reviews
4 Stars First reactions while viewing TIME BANDITS: It’s amazingly well-produced
The historic locations are jammed with character and detail. This is the only live-action movie I’ve seen that literally looks like pages out of Heavy Metal magazine, with kings and swordsmen and wide-eyed little boys and fearsome beasts. But the movie’s repetitive, monotonous in the midst of all this activity. Basically, it’s just a kid and six dwarfs racing breathlessly through one set piece after another, shouting at one another. I walked out of the screening in an unsettled state of mind. When the lights go up, I’m usually fairly certain whether or not I’ve seen a good movie. But my reaction to TIME BANDITS was ambiguous. I had great admiration for what was physically placed on the screen; this movie is worth seeing just to watch. But I was disappointed by the breathless way the dramatic scenes were handled and by a breakneck pace that undermined the most important element of comedy, which is timing.
TIME BANDITS is the expensive fantasy by Terry Gilliam, one of the resident geniuses of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. It is not a Monty Python film. It begins with a little boy who goes up to bed one night and is astonished, as we all would be, when a horseman gallops through his bedroom wall and he is in the middle of a pitched battle. Before long, the little kid has joined up with a band of six intrepid dwarfs, and they’ve embarked on an odyssey through history. The dwarfs, it appears, have gained possession of a map that gives the location of several holes in time–holes they can pop through in order to drop in on the adventures of Robin Hood, Napoleon, and King Agamemnon, and to sail on the Titanic’s maiden voyage.
As a plot gimmick, this sets up TIME BANDITS for a series of comic set pieces as in Mel Brooks’s HISTORY OF THE WORLD–PART 1. But TIME BANDITS isn’t revue-style comedy. It’s more of a whimsical, fantastic excursion through all those times and places, and all of its events are seen through the wondering eyes of a child. That’s where the superb art direction comes in–inspired work by production designer Milly Burns and costume designer Jim Acheson. I’ve rarely, if ever, seen a live-action movie that looks more like an artist’s conception. And yet, admiring all of these good things (and I might also mention several of the performances), I nevertheless left the screening with muted enthusiasm. The movie was somehow all on the same breathless, nonstop emotional level, like an overlong Keystone Kops chase. It didn’t pause to savor its delights, except right near the end, when Sir Ralph Richardson lingered lovingly over a walk-on as the Supreme Being. I had to sort things out. And I was helped enormously in that process by the review of TIME BANDITS by Stanley Kauffmann in The New Republic. He describes the film, unblinkingly, as a “children’s movie.” Of course.
There have been so many elaborate big-budget fantasies in recent years, from RAIDERS to SUPERMAN to CLASH OF THE TITANS, that we’ve come to assume that elaborate costume fantasies are aimed at the average eighteen-year-old filmgoer who is trying to recapture his adolescence. These movies have a level of (limited) sophistication and wickedness that is missing in TIME BANDITS. But perhaps TIME BANDITS does work best as just simply a movie for kids. I ran it through my mind that way, wondering how a kid would respond to the costumes, the panoply, the explosions, the horses and heroic figures, and, of course, the breathless, nonstop pacing. And I decided that a kid would like it just fine. I’m not sure that’s what Gilliam had in mind, but it allows me to recommend the movie–with reservations, but also with admiration.
5 Stars It’s not by Sean Connery. It’s by Terry Gilliam
movie was in terrific shape. want a review of the movie? why trust me on that? watch it yourself.
5 Stars Time Bandits: a children’s film
I LOVE this movie. I first saw it in the theatre when I was 5 years old. God knows what my parents were thinking when they took my sister and I to see it–I KNOW it wasn’t what they were expecting. I, being 5, had no expectations, and was able to just go with it (though I still cringe when Vermin bites into the rat). I always loved the Evil Genius; he was so incompetent and petulant, he could never be really scary, and you can tell David Warner is having a great time playing him.
Though it can drag here and there (the Agamemnon section is my least favorite part), I have very fond memories of watching it as a child. I always see something “new”, every time I watch it. Plus, it was, in a way, my introduction to Monty Python–you can’t beat that.
The DVD is pretty cool; I like the photo gallery, and all the little bits and extras. Though it is informative (Jonathan Pryce was Gilliam’s first choice to play Evil; and I love the bit where Gilliam expresses his disdain for child actors), my gripe about the commentary is, all the actors and Gilliam are recorded on separate tracks–there is no sitting in a room and interacting, here.
I recommend this highly for any fans of Monty Python, or of Terry Gilliam’s work as a director–or to anyone looking for a truly offbeat “children’s movie” for ages 6 and up.
5 Stars Time Bandits VHS purchase
The product arrived in a timely manner and even better condition than described…even the box was like new. I would definitely do business with this seller again in a heartbeat!
5 Stars Time Bandits VHS
I bought this VHS tape as an addition to my collection of videos that I can show to my Grandchildren. It is a fun movie that should be seen by all! It is one of those movies that you can watch over and over again!
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