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Time Bandits

Catalog Number
2310
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Time Bandits (1981)

Additional Information

Additional Information
All the dreams you've ever had and not just the good ones

...they didn't make history, they stole it!

A young boy joins a group of renegade dwarves on an unpredictable journey through time in this humorous fantasy. Monty Python animator Terry Gilliam mostly achieves a tricky balancing act in his second feature as sole director, creating a dark, irreverent comedy disguised as a family adventure. Particularly amusing are the boy's encounters with various historical figures, including an entertainment-starved Napoleon (Ian Holm), a powerful Agamemnon (Sean Connery), and a surprisingly stuffy Robin Hood, embodied by Gilliam's Python cohort John Cleese. Episodic by nature, the film is less successful when dealing with the larger narrative, which concerns the pursuit of the dwarves and their time-traveling map by the Supreme Being. However, the combination of Gilliam's visual exuberance and the witty script (by Gilliam and Michael Palin) ensures an entertaining, if erratic, journey.

Time Bandits is a 1981 British fantasy film co-written, produced, and directed by Terry Gilliam, and starring Sean Connery, John Cleese, Shelley Duvall, Ralph Richardson, Katherine Helmond, Ian Holm, Michael Palin, David Warner, and Craig Warnock.

Gilliam has referred to Time Bandits as the first in his "Trilogy of Imagination", followed by Brazil (1985) and ending with The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1989).[3] All are about the "craziness of our awkwardly ordered society and the desire to escape it through whatever means possible."[4] All three films focus on these struggles and attempts to escape them through imagination: Time Bandits, through the eyes of a child, Brazil, through the eyes of a man in his thirties, and Munchausen, through the eyes of an elderly man.[4]

Time Bandits received critical acclaim and grossed over US$40 million on a budget of $5 million (£2.2 million).[6]

As discussed in a DVD interview with Palin and Gilliam, the film came out in the fall season (after the blockbuster summer films, but before the hit Christmas season) and became extremely successful at the U.S. box office, grossing $42.4 million, and making the film Gilliam's breakthrough hit in the U.S.[7]

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 92% rating based on 39 reviews, averaging an 8/10; the consensus states: "Time Bandits is a remarkable time-travel fantasy from Terry Gilliam, who utilizes fantastic set design and homemade special effects to create a vivid, original universe."[8]

Release Date: November 6, 1981

Distrib: Avco Embassy

Boxoffice: $42,365,581 2014: $118,925,200

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