TIME BANDITS (1981)

Moving on from the Monty Python universe in babysteps, director Terry Gilliam, co-writing with Python lifer Michael Palin, concocted this typically overstuffed metaphysical adventure about a young lad who drops thru a portal in time to join a jolly band of thieving midgets bopping around the globe on a fractured time continuum as if stuck for eternity in a ‘Worst of’ DOCTOR WHO compilation.  Comic violence and fake laughs thru the ages; the usual Gilliam modus operandi.  An impressive sounding cast of zanies make funny faces in lieu of being funny with Ian Holm’s Napoleon & John Cleese’s Robin Hood in a tie for least laughs, and David Warner’s devilish villain the biggest disappointment.  Two standouts: a remarkably youthful looking Sean Connery amused with himself as a Kingly Hellenistic toast-of-the-populace and a late appearance by Ralph Richardson as the Supreme Being, demonstrating how to earn laughs without really trying.  His entrance line, ‘What a dreadful mess,’ pretty much sums things up.*  The real time bandit is, of course, Terry Gilliam, and you can’t get your two hours back.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT:  *Gilliam's best shot at these portmanteau pics was THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN/’‘88.  But the Baron, all but certainly written with Richardson in mind (he had died in 1983) was recast with a merely adequate John Neville, losing whatever charm and magic the film might have had.