Word: gilliams
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...screenplay, by Gilliam and co-Python Michael Palin, is eclectic to the point of being wholly derivative, both thematically and visually. It draws on everything from the anti-modern stance of A Clockwork Orange, to the scenic flash of Raiders of the Lost Ark, to the overt tackiness of the original Flash Gordon: yet it remains an underwhelming story. The adventure involves Kevin, a young, modern-age Briton (not so much played as walked through by unknown Craig Warnock), whose parents ive in subservience to hundreds of whirring, useless kitchen apparati and sit transfixed as horrific gameshows prance across...
...movie has seemed a straightforward Pythonic sitcom, and the audience has tittered appreciatively, anxiously awaiting the next witticism. But it is not to be. Gilliam relates his intentions by shock therapy: The sleeping boy is roused by a medieval horseman galloping out of the wardrobe and across his bed. The audience snickers, thinking this is funny; it may be. But that's not Gilliam's purpose. Six peculiar midgets appear in the same nerve-racking manner; from thereon, Time Bandits is an adventurous escapade, and you either reorient your demands or sit and squirm for the next two hours...
...like the effects, the message occasionally seems phony. Gilliam wants his images to have meaning; yet by investing midgets with heroics, he calls for a tolerance difficult to sustain. Granted that if the six were played by "normal-sized" actors, the film would lose all of its staying power; yet depending on these men of limited height, experience, and acting ability becomes a drag. Cinematographer Peter Bizou probably has chronic back pains from keeping the camera down on a level to make them look correct, but all the efforts in the world cannot negate the fact that these are tiny...
...hangup is its confused characterization of evil. The devil (David Warner a la Ming the Merciless) tries to encompass all evil but fails to conjure anything but pity for his campy lines. Margaret Hamilton's witch in Oz terrified children of all ages; she never diluted her rottenness. Yet Gilliam has exorcised the seriousness out of where it belongs and makes the devil and his cohorts buffoons, wearing garbage bags over their capes and muttering things about advanced technology. Gilliam intends the plastic and electronics, which were also prominent in Kevin's living room, to personify evil as seeking...
...attempts at teaching youth via fairy-book change of time, place, and character, and captivating adults via snatches of humor, the movie's thrust falls somewhere in the dangerous middle ground. Gilliam was Python's sordid animator in Time Bandits and often uses people as if they were cartoons. There are many violent scenes worthy of Tom and Jerry or Wile E. Coyote except with live subjects as characters smash into walls, eat rats, and explode. It's bad enough when Elmer Fudd blows up and survives unscathed, but the violence here is too up-front to be humorous...