He thinks he’s found a home in Greece (where, let’s face it, he probably would have been assassinated by Agamemnon’s jealous queen), only to have the thieves steal him away and put him back into danger. Connery’s Agamemnon fares as well as anyone, and even he is left cheated after a magnanimous gesture towards Kevin.Īs for Kevin, he suffers most of anyone. The Supreme Being (Ralph Richardson) may be on top of things, but Gilliam leaves the door open as to whether God is, at best, unthinking, and at worst, cruel, towards humanity. John Cleese’s Robin Hood is a two-faced gladhander (who admittedly does still help the poor). Napoleon (Ian Holm) is obsessed with height to the point of ignoring his duties as conqueror. Gilliam’s desire to tweak power structures and bureaucracies leaves hardly anyone unscathed.
Time bandit film full#
Anyone who saw Jabberwocky or Monty Python and the Holy Grail will be glad to see that Medieval times are still full of blood, shit, and violence. To some degree, you could argue that Gilliam might share some of Evil’s views, at least towards the people who populate the world.
Evil, dressed in bony armor that glistens like its just been removed from its previous owner and with what looks to be a face-hugger from Alien clamped to his skull, has a much more efficient and technological plan for creation. Evil holds a dim view of the Supreme Being’s creation, seeing it as a cosmos full of useless creatures such as slugs. On the one hand, it’s one adventurous set piece after another, punctuated by squabbling amongst the thieves and by the machinations of Evil (David Warner) to get the map. King Agamemnon (Sean Connery) slays a minotaur, an ogre and his wife travel the seas, and a giant takes the band of thieves on a dangerous ride. Time Bandits blends history and fantasy, treating them as equals, often blurring the lines between the two. They’re using the map to plunder history of its treasures, and Kevin gets pulled into their adventures.įrom there, it’s pretty much a bucket list of places an inquisitive child would want to go: ancient Greece, Napoleonic Europe, Sherwood Forest, the Titanic, and a realm of monsters and folklore known as the Time of Legends. This startling scene is followed by a group of diminutive time-travelers who have stolen a map of time and space from the Supreme Being. One night, an actual knight astride a warhorse tramples through his bedroom and off into a forest where Kevin’s wall used to be. His bedroom walls are covered with drawings of knights and fantastical figures, his toys ranging from Legos to cowboys to robots. Is it possible that Time Bandits, often hailed as a testament to the joys of childhood imagination, might be Terry Gilliam’s most pessimistic film? Let’s throw spoiler caution to the wind - the film is 34 years old, after all - and examine the facts: Kevin (Craig Warnock) is a boy who uses books and his imagination to escape the drudgery of his day-to-day life.
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