Film Review: Time Bandits

Well. A weird one, as you'd expect from Gilliam. See wiki. Visually rich, as I think they say; indeed some of the scenes - particularly the early one of the approach to the city in the Napoloeonic wars - looked like it had been done as a recreation of a painting; or perhaps not a re-creation: created, as though a painting; with attention to dramatic light and dark.

However, as a film - as entertainment, which it is meant to be - it is flawed; in that it is not funny enough, and not brave enough to be not funny at all. And too often skates over the verges of unfunnyness. So it would perhaps have been better not as a comedy at all, perhaps. Examples? "Pansy" is rather heavy-handed. We're given a brief shot of a lifebuoy with "Titanic" written on it, which is full, but then a moment later it is thrust into our faces, which isn't. Robin Hood. The gratuitous hitting of the poor by one of RH's henchmen. As a cartoon, that would have been fine; with real people - though, obviously, they weren't really hit - it isn't. Indeed the entire thing is really a cartoon.

The minotaur is very good, though.