Time Bandits (1981) Revisited – Fantasy Movie Review

Fantasy can be an escape for many of us when it comes to the movies.  It’s a genre that’s wide open to all sorts of ideas and imagination.  That’s really what the genre is all about actually, imagination and taking magic and bringing it to life on screen.  It can be funny, horrifying, over the top or all of the above and then some.  And this episode of Fantasizing About Fantasy Films is going to open a portal into a movie that falls into that category of “then some.”  I’m talking about Terry Gilliam’s 1981 classic Time Bandits, a film that’s considered a “kids movie” but has more going on than you might realize underneath the slapstick and insanity.  So, grab the map and lets be robbers as we steal the secrets of Time Bandits.

In the late 70’s Terry Gilliam had an idea for a film.  It would be a science fiction fantasy, a darkly funny and scathing take on the world and how technology and the worlds of business and making money were taking over and turning the landscape into a terrifying, soul crushing place.  But yes…still funny.  That film was Brazil and at the time no one wanted to make that movie.  Studios and producers were more than a little hesitant to tackle the subject matter as well as the story that Gilliam was trying to tell.

Gilliam had had directed two films as part of the Monty Python library a few years prior.  Monty Python and The Holy Grail and Jabberwocky.  When no one would take on his idea for Brazil, Gilliam decided to write a film that was something no one could say no to, a “children’s movie.”  His concept was to do the movie all from a child’s perspective of the world, but it would be a fantasy film, sort of a fairy tale with a modern spin…yet as old as…time.  Learn all about it on this weeks edition of Fantasizing About Fantasy Films!

Fantasizing About Fantasy Films is written and narrated by Jessica Dwyer. Bill Mazzola is the editor, Chris Bumbray produces with Adam Walton, and Berge Garabedian is the Executive Producer. Watch other episodes below: