Stolen Time

Last night, I sat down to watch one of Terry Gilliam's earlier films, Time Bandits. No sense in me being coy about it; I hated it.

Actually "no sense" sums it all up for me in a nutshell. The last time I found a movie this incoherent was Buckaroo Banzai (yes, I've abbreviated the full title of that one there). Time Bandits has only the barest thread of a plot, in which a group of thieves uses a map stolen from God that lets them travel through time and space on a crime spree. Caught up in their shenanigans is a young boy pulled from his bedroom one night.

Really, it's all just an excuse to hop into a new movie every 15 minutes or so. There's a chunk about Napolean, quickly supplanted by a bit about Robin Hood, soon tossed away for something with Agamemnon, almost immediately abandoned for a scene on the Titanic, then forgotten in favor of something involving an ogre on a ship at sea that's really a hat on a giant's head.

And some other stuff.

The film is crammed full of visual ideas, but none is connected to the one before or after it. The film is also crammed with some talented actors, A-list, Monty Python regulars, and recognizable faces -- including John Cleese, Sean Connery, Shelley Duvall, David Warner, Katherine Helmond, Ian Holm, and Michael Palin. And none really stands out, since none gets more than 10 minutes of screen time.

Talking briefly about this film with Shocho, I came to realize that I probably just don't like Terry Gilliam movies as much as I thought after all. I've given him the benefit of the doubt for a long, long time, because the first film of his I ever saw was 12 Monkeys, which remains one of my favorite movies to this day; I thought it brilliant on every level.

But since then, I've been bored by Brazil, underwhelmed by The Brothers Grimm, mostly disappointed by The Fisher King, and more. I think 12 Monkeys was an exception to the rule. As a director, Gilliam seems to value presentation and style foremost; character comes a distant second, and plot an even more distant third. Perhaps the original French source material for 12 Monkeys, or its clever adaptation, is what made the difference there.

All I know is, I haven't given a Gilliam film a passing grade since then. And this one rates lower than most for me. It gets a "do not see this" D-. Time Bandits did indeed steal time from me, and I wish I had it back.