Greenes
Please don't spend money on this.
Freaktana
A Major Disappointment
FuzzyTagz
If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.
merelyaninnuendo
Time Bandits2 And A Half Out Of 5Time Bandits is a plot driven comic feature that keeps its jokes under its sleeve as a shield which unfortunately is penetrable. Despite of being bound and connected with the characters and a premise, it feeds itself off on various comic sketches for the most part of it, which clearly is not acceptable. It falls flatly on face on technical aspects like background score, production design, sound department, costume design, cinematography, art design and editing. The camera work is stultifyingly dull and immature for no matter how plausible the effort be to crack a smile on viewers' face, it is undeniably ludicrous. The screenplay by Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam is, as mentioned earlier, a series of various jokes and is never given the priority to anything but the punch line of it. Terry Gilliam; the director, has done a decent work on executing such an eerie script but it fails to connect with the audience as essential. The performance works on the humorous aspect of it but as far as emotions are concerned they come out a bit shallow. Time Bandits actually manipulates for time to stand still for the punch on any or every mannerism of the sequence.
nichstarling
This is a film with a massive heart. It engages both adults and children. I first watched this when I was 12, my brother was 9. We sat with our parents, all of us laughing and really engaging with the silliness and surprises throughout. It does rely on having a very British sense of humour, and anyone who gets Monty python will have no problem with this, but I would challenge anyone not to find the premise and execution of this film anything other than highly engaging.
Woodyanders
Unhappy eleven-year-old boy Kevin (a fine and engaging performance by Craig Warnack) inadvertently joins up with a gang of mischievous dwarfs who possess a map that enables them to travel through time and happily plunder treasure from famous historical figures. Meanwhile, Evil (a splendidly sardonic portrayal by David Warner) plots to obtain the map so he can rule the universe.Director Terry Gilliam, who co-wrote the witty and creative script with Michael Palin, displays a tireless and positively infectious go-for-broke inventiveness that's quite a joy to behold from start to finish, keeps the wildly entertaining story moving along at a constant snappy pace, ably crafts and maintains a fairly dark, yet blithely irreverent tone, delivers an uproarious array of inspired wacky gags (for example, an ogre's ship turns out to be a hat on top of a giant's head), further provides wickedly spot-on satirical swipes at free will, mindless greed, technology run amok, shallow consumerism and materialism, and the necessity for evil to exist in the world, and tops everything off with a genuinely startling bleak ending.A slew of sharp cameos from a terrific assortment of big names qualifies as an additional delightful plus: Ian Holm as a neurotic and irritable Napoleon, Sean Connery as the kindly King Agamemnon, John Cleese as a cheerfully doltish and polite Robin Hood, a deliciously droll Ralph Richardson as the prim'n'proper Supreme Being, Peter Vaughan as an ogre with a bad back, Katherine Helmond as the ogre's doting wife, and Palin and Shelley Duvall as lovers both in the Middle Ages and on board the Titanic. Tiny Ross, Kenny Baker, Jack Purvis, Malcolm Dixon, Mike Edmonds, and especially David Rappaport as rascally leader Randall are all extremely personable as the dwarfs. A real treat.
framptonhollis
A lot of great fantasy films came out in the 80's. Among the best were films like "The Neverending Story", "Labyrinth", "Legend", "Willow", and, possibly the greatest (and most criminally underrated) of them all is Terry Gilliam's masterpiece "Time Bandits". It's a hilarious film that has a great cast, great directing, and a witty script!While it IS a fantasy film, it is much more than JUST a fantasy film. It is a Terry Gilliam film, a film full of insanity, magic, and a sharp satirical edge (any scene featuring the boy protagonist's technology obsessed parents is full of clever, and still quite relevant, satire).At times it's really dark (and creepy), at other it's really light, but it is always excellent and awesome! Jumping from one time period to the next, it manages to be a bizarre and creative treat almost unlike any other sci-fi/fantasy film (that wasn't directed by Mr. Gilliam, of course).It seems like a good prequel to Terry Gilliam's "Brazil" (which I'm really excited to see).
