Facts & Figures
* Title: Time Bandits
* IMDB rating at time of writing: 6.9
* Year: 1981
* Length: 116 minutes
* Country: United Kingdom
* Director: Terry Gilliam
* Producer: Terry Gilliam, George Harrison, Denis O’Brien
* Writers: Terry Gilliam, Michael Palin
* Cinematography: Peter Biziou
* Music: Mike Moran, George Harrison
* Cast: Craig Warnock, David Rappaport, Kenny Baker, David Warner, Michael Palin, Shelly Duvall, John Cleese, Sean Connery, Ian Holm, Ralph Richardson
Plot summary (Spoiler alert!)
Kevin, an 11 year old boy with a passion for history, is being ignored by his parents, who prefer to invest time in all the latest technologies to stay ahead of their neighbours. One night in bed, Kevin wakes from his sleep to find a medieval knight running through his bedroom on horseback, and running away through a forest that has appeared in one of the walls. The next night, Kevin comes prepared and brings a polaroid camera to take snapshots of any other weird events. This time, however, six little people stumble out of his wardrobe holding a map of some kind. After a brief discussion about a supreme being following them, they create an exit by pushing through a wall, creating a hallway. Kevin joins the midgets, but after a while the Supreme Being shows up and pursues, causing Kevin and the dwarfs to run and, at the end of the hallway, fall in a chasm into the black void.
When Kevin and the midgets arrive in 19th century France, the boy learns that the dwarfs were employees of the Supreme Being, but stole a map of space and time, which they use to travel through time and steal treasures. They are also being watched by a character known as Evil, who wants the map for himself so he can change the universe. In France, they manage to meet Napoleon, become his most trusted generals and run off with his treasures, escaping through another time portal and ending up in the time of Robin Hood. When they meet him and the merry-men, all the treasure is taken from them and distributed among the poor. Having to steal a new treasure, Kevin gets split up from the crimilittle and ends up in ancient Greece, where he witnesses a fight between the legendary king Agamemnon and a minotaur. Saving the king’s life, Kevin is taken home with him and adopted as a fresh prince, but during the festivities, the midgets show up again, steal the treasures and take Kevin with them through a time portal. This time they end up on some luxury ocean liner, named Titanic. To all surprises, the ship sinks, forcing everyone to take another trip, this time to the main goal of the little ones: The Most Fabulous Object In The World. The only problem is that this treasure is located inside the Evil’s Fortress Of Ultimate Darkness!
The treasure turns out to be a trap set by Evil, allowing him to steal the map, trapping the dwarfs in a cage hanging over a void. The group, however, manages to use a photograph of the map, that Kevin had taken earlier, to escape and bring military equipment from all era’s to fight Evil. The sorcerer, unfortunately, easily beats all these tricks, but just when he is about to unleash his full powers on the defenseless tiny ones, the Supreme Being arrives, turning Evil into smoldering coal. The dwarfs apologize to their creator, who tells them that the whole adventure was part of his plan, letting him defeat Evil forever. During the cleaning of the remains of Evil, a small piece of concentrated Evil remains. Kevin is left behind, when the Supreme Being and the dwarfs disappear, and loses consciousness when he finds the piece of concentrated Evil. He wakes up in his bed, filled with smoke, and is saved by a firefighter. A toaster is found, holding the charred piece of evil, and Kevin’s parents touch it, wondering what it is, causing them both to explode. As the firefighters leave, Kevin recognizes one of them to be Agamemnon. The movie ends with our boy discovering the snapshots he took on his travels still in his satchel, standing on his own before his burnt house.
Review
Although this movie is one of the earliest examples of Gilliam’s post-Python career, it is still easy to distinguish his uniquely creative and somewhat chaotic style of movie making. This is already visible in the choosing of little people as his main cast, in an interview Gilliam explains how he wanted his main person to be a kid, but not to be alone. A group of kids wouldn’t fit storywise, adults or other creatures would make the film more difficult to shoot, because of camera angles, so therefore midgets.
The story, written together with fellow Python Michael Palin, although somewhat chaotic, is easy to follow, yet pure fantasy. There are many great jokes and tiny details in it, such as two characters (Michael Palin and Shelly Duvall) who appear as a couple in every timezone. The cast is superb, Gilliam having casted some of his former Python colleagues, as well as great names such as Sean Connery and Ian Holm, all do their job excellent. I myself love the performance of Ralph Richardson as the Supreme Being and David Warner as Evil most of all.
Considering the budget and the time of this movie, the effects and visuals are awesome, much more organic and “real” than all the tubes and wires from Brazil and 12 Monkeys.
The DVD itself comes with a nice interview with Gilliam from 2008, filled with interesting anecdotes about how he won the battle for the ending (the studio insisted on a different ending) because the sound during a testshoot failed and everybody filled in that they loved the ending on the comment cards (because they could go home afterwards).
Conclusions
Great entertainment, a funny and still exciting movie. Whether you call it a kid’s movie for adults or an adult movie for kids, fact is that it is pure Gilliam: Creative, chaotic and good for all audiences. If there is one flaw with this movie, it’s the fact that it is an old Gilliam, some people don’t really enjoy those movies, just because they are for all and it’s not exciting enough for them, or the effects aren’t full CGI, which you expect in a fantasy film. I must say, I can see where they are coming from (even though I don’t fully agree with them).
