Space 1979: The one with Sean Connery, R2D2 and Monty Python

 

Title: Time Bandits

What Year?: 1981

Classification: Irreproducible Oddity/ Prototype

Rating: Ow, My Brain!!! (Unrated/ NR)

 

With this review, I’m hitting a milestone: I’ve now reached 79 reviews for this feature (including a couple I have set aside for certain other plans), which is the kind of thing I suppose people might assume I was planning for. In fact, it’s the kind of odd number that just leaves me annoyed, so it’s all the more fitting that I’m getting to the biggest “maybe” on the pile of sidelined movies. Prior to the viewing for this review, I had watched this movie at the very end of 2020, also the end of a streak where I had made a blog post every weekday for six months. I had enough else on my plate that I let it go, but I don’t suppose I ever doubted that I would come back to it. With that, I present Time Bandits, one of the oddest movies to come to my attention.

Our story begins with a boy at home with his impressively banal parents, who lust after the latest kitchen appliances while he chatters about the wonders of history. After going to bed, his sleep is interrupted by a band of midgets who drag him along as they flee a luminous being. He learns that they are minor spirits or imps who rebelled against their master, the Supreme Being, and in the process stole a map that shows the location of flaws in space-time. With it, they travel through time on a massive looting spree, meeting the likes of Napoleon, Robin Hood, Agamemnon and an ogre. But they are being pursued both by their old boss and the Evil One, a diabolical figure who scoffs at the creator for making butterflies instead of microchips. It all ends in in a half-ruined fortress whose blocks look suspiciously like a certain building toy, where the bandits must escape the Evil One’s trap and muster the past and future forces of good for the final battle. And if you’re having trouble making sense of any of this, just try to figure out the theme song!

Time Bandits was a fantasy/ science fiction film by writer/ director Terry Gilliam, a veteran of Monty Python. The cast included midgets David Rappaport and Kenny Baker, with David Warner of the later Trek franchise as the Evil One and elder thespian Ralph Richardson of Dragonslayer as the Supreme Being. A large supporting cast included Ian Holm as Napoleon, Sean Connery (see Zardoz and Meteor) as Agamemnon, and John Cleese as Robin Python. Beatle George Harrison (see also… Caveman?) performed the song “Dream Away” in the final credits, and received credit as executive producer. The film received a US box office of $36 million in 1981, against a $5M budget, and was re-released theatrically in 1982. Its recent availability is somewhat uneven for a high-profile release; most notably, it is unavailable on Amazon streaming except by HBO subscription, though it can be purchased on other streaming platforms.

For my personal experiences, this is one that has remained much more peripheral than I can easily explain after considering both the film and its reputation. I definitely never saw it as a kid or in earlier adulthood, though I may well have encountered it on the video racks. To the extent I was aware of it, I believe I semi-consciously lumped it in with Flight of the Navigator (which I do recall seeing on ‘90s TV) and certain other kid-oriented fare. To that extent, its overall reputation has indeed been that of a solid ‘80s kids’ movie, which I find moderately horrifying. I am sure it wouldn’t have gone over with kid me, not because it’s scary or inappropriate, but because there are long stretches I can barely pay attention to even as an adult. The rest, on the other hand, are some of the most surreal and random sequences to be encountered in a near-mainstream vintage film.

This brings us to the core of the movie’s strengths and weaknesses: The whole thing is effectively an unofficial Monty Python movie. Given these parameters, the results are predictably and necessarily hit or miss, except that the averages are a lot less satisfactory than one would expect from a genuine Monty Python movie. The most genuinely funny segment to come out of the historical adventures is the encounter with Robin Hood, envisioned as a proto-Marxist who shows no qualms about redistributing others’ loot. Things get more emotionally satisfying when the boy meets Agamemnon, in the process shedding further light on his relationship with his own family. Tellingly, the movie really goes off the charts with the parents back home, who literally show more interest in their appliances than their kid. The cluelessly self-centered pair are very entertaining, but it’s absolutely terrifying to think of them as responsible for a child’s well-being. Things don’t get any more comfortable with their fate in the movie’s epilogue, which I am inclined to take as ambiguous; the most significant commentary is that numerous bystanders remain as apathetic as the parents themselves.

By any appraisal, the best moments come from the Evil One and his conflict with the Supreme Being. Both entities are portrayed unconventionally enough that they don’t quite line up with the Judeo-Christian Devil and God, but this never feels sacrilegious, at least in intent. The Evil One claims to be the eternal precursor of the Supreme Being rather than a created entity, making him more akin to Tiamat than Satan (see also Highway To Hell), though his own minions don’t really believe him. More intriguing is his fascination with technology, which seems to have long since displaced the traditional aim of tempting and corrupting humanity. Between the Evil One’s rants and the bandits’ accounts, we also get a sense of the character of the Supreme Being long before his belated appearance, complete with a business suit. By this movie’s vision, the Creator is an almost but not quite deistic being, with a gift for mischief possibly even greater than Evil One’s. It all builds up a genuine sense of opposing cosmic forces in the final showdown, as the fallible forces of good assail the biomechanical defenses of the evil one with cowboys, hoplites, knights, lasers and a Sherman tank (in that order!).

This all still leaves me with a “one scene” to cover, and it was pretty much inevitable that it would feature the Evil One and his Fortress of Ultimate Darkness. Out of this wealth, the sequence that stands out is the bandits’ arrival at the fortress. As they approach, we get an extended establishing shot of the fortress, seemingly as tall as one of the Star Destroyers is long. In the process, we get a sense of the architectural style, a kind of cross between gothic and pseudo-futuristic, but mostly just massively boxy. After a cutaway to the Evil One, we find the bandits have reached a labyrinth of walkways over a bottomless pit. In the midst of the gloom, they suddenly see a fantastic vision of a Moderna kitchen, complete with a game show announcer and two familiar models. The shots make the appliances look every bit as angular and artificial as the Fortress itself, now lit and polished well enough to be vaguely aesthetic. It’s too much for the bandits, who somehow manage to rush through the maze without falling to their deaths, all while the boy tries to warn them of a trap. When they reach the announcer, they learn that the prize has a price. A shot of their faces shows a moment of their normal wariness, far too late. It’s one of the more intriguing and allegorical moments of the movie, and a strong start to the bonkers final act. The “problem” is that we haven’t seen anything like it up to this point.

In conclusion, I must once again comment on the rating. I will freely acknowledge that this is a movie that simply goes over my head more often than not. Even so, I can say that on its own strengths and weaknesses, this movie would do not much better or worse than 3 out of 5. What balances out is the clear creativity and risk-taking that went into the venture, without which it would be missing its strongest moments as well as many of its flaws. Based on that, I have chosen the unrated category, something I have previously done in this feature only for House. Even then, I must qualify that I am not doing this for a different set of reasons than for that and other movies I have ranked unrated. Time Bandits is not willfully bizarre, extreme or controversial the way films like House or Dead Alive are (though at times it comes close). What it is is a work that does its own thing and lets you, the viewer, make your own judgment. For my part, I will do the same.

Image credit videocollector.co.uk.