Classic Movie Review Time Bandits

Time Bandits (1993)

Directed by Terry Gilliam

Written by Terry Gilliam, Michael Palin 

Starring John Cleese, Sean Connery, Shelley Duvall, Ian Holm, Craig Warnock 

Release Date July 2nd, 1981 

Published November 28th, 2023 

A young boy is lying in bed, fighting off sleep, but seemingly losing the fight. All of a sudden, a horse with a man in armor bursts out of his cupboard and leaps over his bed before riding off into the distance of his bedroom wall which has somehow become an ancient meadow. You naturally might assume that this is a dream sequence, a short nightmare perhaps. But director Terry Gilliam is toying with you. He has the parents come to the child's room immediately following the nightmare and, though the boy's room is suddenly back in order, the parents claimed he was making quite a lot of noise. They tell him to knock it off and go to bed. 

The following day, our hero, Kevin (Craig Warnock) is desperately eager to get back to bed. He's ready with a flashlight and a polaroid camera at hand in case the armored horseman returns. The Knight does not return but Kevin's bedroom is once again magically transformed. This time, a group of 6 little people carrying a magical map invade Kevin's bedroom and begin to wreak havoc. These six men are on the run from a God-like entity from whom, they have stolen a magical map of time. The map allows them to travel to places throughout world history where they can steal all the treasure they want. 

Naturally, Kevin gets caught up in the time travel chicanery as the bandits take him with them on their journey. The first stop is Italy where they land in the midst of the battle of Castiglione. Then it's off to meet Napoleon in France where they manage to get into Napoleon's inner circle simply because they are the only people Napoleon is taller than. Ian Holm plays Napoleon as a height obsessed goof whose idiocy leads to his new friends stealing his entire treasury. The bandits make a narrow escape with their stolen goods and land somewhere in England in the time of Robin Hood. 

Robin Hood is played by some a****** TERF who I will not name and he assumes that the Bandits treasure is their contribution to his cause, stealing from the rich to give to the poor. This sequence introduces a running gag involving Michael Palin and Shelley Duvall as the most unlucky reincarnated couple in human history. In Robin Hood's era they are robbed multiple times and left to die tied to a tree in their underwear. When we see them again, they are also on the brink of death on a historically doomed voyage. 

The most notable stop on their journey is Mycenaean Greece where King Agamemnon (Sean Connery) is found fighting a minotaur. Kevin is somehow alone, his bandit friends having been dropped somewhere else. With no other option, Kevin accompanies the King back to his palace where he is seemingly adopted by the King and really takes to the idea of staying in Greece and becoming royalty. That is until the bandits do arrive and steal Kevin away via there magical map for another strange and unexpected adventure. 

Click here for my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003) 

Directed by Stephen Norrington 

Written by James Dale Robinson 

Starring Sean Connery, Shane West, Stuart Townsend, Peta Wilson 

Release Date July 11th, 2003 

Published July 10th, 2003 

In 1986, Alan Moore blew the doors off of the comics code of the 1950's with his seminal work,  Watchmen. Until that comic was released, the industry was mired in a rut of safe, kid-friendly superheroes that lacked depth and character. The superheroes of Watchmen were not your average superheroes. These characters were morally ambivalent and often indulged in the types of activities that would turn Superman's stomach. Moore’s follow-up book about Jack The Ripper, From Hell, was yet another seedy, enveloping-pushing work of art, and was turned into a sensational film in 2001. Then, in 2003, someone tried to bring Moore back to the big screen and the results were not great. 

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen as a comic was a radical rethink of DC's Justice League series that replaced traditional superheroes with characters from 19th century literature. Using the novels as back story, Moore took characters such as H. Rider Haggard's Alan Quartermain and Bram Stoker's Mina Harker and revised them as superheroes fighting on behalf of the British crown. But the writer of Watchmen could not be satisfied with a straight superhero adventure story; each character was now being shot through Moore's twisted view of heroes. 

In Moore's world Quartermain is an old man with diminished skills. Mina Harker survived Dracula and is now a vampire. (Other characters, like H.G Welles's Invisible Man and Captain Nemo were criminals. The Invisible Man was a rapist.) Nevertheless, they fought evil in an alternate universe. Knowing this, I shouldn't be surprised that the film version of The League is a tame, PG-13 version of the comic, stripped of its lasciviousness and any shred of anything interesting.

Directed by Blade's Stephen Norrington, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen stars Sean Connery as Quartermain, an adventurer living in Africa but only as a legend; no longer the Quartermain of the legendary stories. When Quartermain is approached by an emissary of the British government to help fend off a potential world war, his immediate response is a flat no. That is, until his friends in Africa are attacked, which brings the old lion out of retirement. Quartermain's assignment is to lead a reformation of a legendary crime fighting team, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. 

With the help of Harker (Peta Wilson); Rodney Skinner--The Invisible Man (Tony Curran); and Captain Nemo--high seas Indian pirate and no relation to the clownfish (Nahseeruddin Shah); Quartermain will help the countries of Europe avoid a world war. However, a task this big calls for a bigger team so Quartermain calls on an old acquaintance named Dorian Gray (Stuart Townsend), whose unique ability is not pronounced until gunmen attack his home and he survives multiple gunshot wounds. Gray can't be killed (an ability writer Oscar Wilde hadn't envisioned for his egocentric character). During the gun battle, another team member comes out of the woodwork, an American secret service agent named Tom Sawyer (Shane West).

One more team member is needed, leading the team to Paris where legendary scientist Dr. Henry Jekyll (Jason Flemyng) has been banished because he can't control his monstrous alter ego, Mr. Hyde. With Jekyll and Hyde onboard, it's time to launch into the meat of the film. The character introductions are the best part of the film, but they take awhile. Using Nemo's massive watercraft, the Nautilus, the League heads to Venice, Italy to prevent the bad guy, known as the Phantom, from attacking a conference meant to prevent world war.

From here, the film slips into dull gun battles, loud explosions, and scenes where special effects stand in for dialogue and character development. Director Stephen Norrington has an eye for staging, his background is in effects, so that isn't surprising; however, unlike in his best film, 1998's Blade, he doesn't have a story as compelling as his sets. The film's plot? Well, let's just say I haven't seen this many plot holes since the President's last State of the Union speech. 

The problem with this film is that the edge that made people want to turn The League into a movie is excised to make the film marketable to teenagers. This compromise renders the story un-filmable, unless you do it like every other superhero movie ever made, which is exactly what Norrington does. Aside from its literary conceit, The League brings nothing new to the genre, except maybe a lack of tights. This is exactly the story Moore was reacting to when he wrote Watchmen, which has thus far avoided the Hollywood treatment (and if this is how they are going to do it I hope it remains elusive.)

Just how much does The League movie pander to marketing? The team now has an American member just to improve the box office chances of the movie. Tom Sawyer is added to the cast though he was not in Moore's comic. Sawyer is here because, again, marketers thought the film needed an American character to market to American audiences. Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray is also a new addition though not because anyone saw his potential as a character in this universe. Rather, Gray was added as a replacement  character in place of a Moore character who pushed the boundaries of copyright infringement, a British secret service character named Campion Bond.

If you can't do the source material correctly, just don't do it at all. The graphic novels of The League of Extraordinary Gentleman, I am told,  are spectacularly moody and dark stories told in fascinating detail and rendered artfully on the page. The film is an anathema to its source. There are still rumors of a Watchmen movie out there and I guarantee they will screw it up.