Conceived from the wacky and twisted humor of British director, Terry Gilliam, Time Bandits certainly retains the same outlandish appeal as his other film Monty Python, which I feel best, represents his work. This film is intended not only for children, but also for teens and adults alike.
The story begins with introducing us to Kevin, who spends the majority of his time expanding his imagination- reading and playing with his toys- in order to escape his drum home-life. His rather neglectful and uncaring parents aren’t the loveliest of all people either; opting to watch T.V. instead of spend time with him.
One night Kevin is fast asleep and suddenly gets jolted awake to find six time-traveling little people crowding his room. They’ve stolen a map of the universe from God and have schemed to travel back through different time periods in history in order to steal treasure. Kevin quickly decides that this is the kind of adventure he’s been waiting for and jumps through the time hole with the rest of the gang. It’s easy to see how Gilliam’s imagination ran wild- exploring the diverse, yet unconventional, settings of the time periods.
The evil parts of the movie kind of freaked me out though. Evil Genius and his dimwitted associates really helped to emphasize their antagonistic role- living in a nightmarishly dark fortress complete with twisted stone columns and the whole nine yards, all situated on a menacing cliff. Creepy.
Something else I thought was interesting was the idea that technology was being used as an aid to carryout evil doings. Gilliam cleverly inserted this underlying notion that society is increasingly becoming over-reliant on technology. (I guess it’s only a matter of time when the machines will revolt and take over the world.) Case in point, computers and smart devices are quickly replacing tangible books (but that’s a different argument for another time). Nonetheless, in the end good prevailed and all was right in the universe.
Overall, I enjoyed this movie. The story-line wasn’t great, but it was decent. Although, it kind of surprised me that Kevin’s parents ended up getting obliterated at the very end- he was now an orphan. I guess that was also another attempt to mock the typical “happily ever after” conclusion.
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