1981 film Time Bandit It really influenced me as a kid. Monty Python The movie was very funny because it involved half of a legendary comedy troupe. It was directed by Terry Gilliam, co-written with Michael Palin, and both Palin and John Cleese played supporting roles. And more than that, the idea of a boy about my age traveling through history with a band of thieves played by midget actors (one of whom was none other than Kenny “R2-D2” Baker) sounded like a thrilling adventure. But Gilliam wasn’t about to do Python again. The movie was more weird than it was funny. For weeks afterwards, I had nightmares inspired by the ending, in which the young protagonist’s parents literally explode after touching a piece of pure evil (the movie’s villain), leaving the boy completely alone and abandoned even by a fireman (played by Sean Connery) who resembled the mythical hero Agamemnon, who had become a father figure in his earlier adventures.
Apple’s new Time Bandit series, What we do in the shadows creator Jemaine Clement and Taika WaititiIan Morris (Inbetweeners(Star Wars: Episode I: The Last Jedi) seems tailored to fit the version of the movie I had in my head rather than the one Gilliam actually made. It’s generally sillier, more tongue-in-cheek, and just generally lighter. Apple has placed it in the “Kids & Family” tab of its app, and there’s nothing in the 10-episode first season that’s likely to give viewers of any age nightmares. Even the demons working for evil (here played by Clement, with Waititi playing the demon’s heavenly sidekick, the Supreme Being) are deliberately cartoonish.
But this new Time Bandit The film is ambitiously close to what I wanted it to be all those years ago, but its execution is uneven. There are some solid episodes in the second half of the season, but most of the episodes before that are fun and silly but forgettable. Whatever problems I may have with what Gilliam and company did back in the day, this film has stayed with me for decades.
This time around, our protagonist is Kevin (Kal-El Tuck), an 11-year-old British boy with a history obsession that’s caused a stir for his sister, Saffron (Kiera Thompson), and his parents. When time bandits wander into Kevin’s bedroom, Kevin eagerly follows them into history, visiting Stonehenge and the Great Wall when they were still in the early stages of construction, Troy when a giant wooden horse was being pushed up against the city gates, New York at the end of Prohibition, and other vibrant moments from the past.
The show features a few little people in small roles as agents pursuing the Time Bandits on behalf of a supreme being, but the Time Bandits are actually Penelope (Lisa Kudrow), who loudly protests that the group has no leader, even though she clearly thinks she is, and Judy (Charlene Yi), an empath and psychologist.
the aspiring actor Alto (Tadhg Murphy), who is bad at disguise; the strong but weak-minded Bitterig (Rune Temte); and the map-reader Widgit (Roger Jean Nsengyumba). Evil has Widgit’s ex-lover, the demon Fianna (Rachel House), on its trail, while Saffron gets lost in time while pursuing her brother.
Lee said he canceled the series.
Judy suddenly disappears after being physically assaulted and other abused during filming without proper support from the producers, which results in Judy suddenly disappearing during the time jump in the middle of the season, which will be awkward without knowing why that would happen in the real world.
Clement the Villain
Much of the comedy relies on anachronistic humor. Kevin, who has long dreamed of discovering Stonehenge’s origins, is dismayed to learn that it was built to attract tourists and that its inventor plans to add a gift shop to it. In a later episode, Bandit finds himself caught in the middle of the 1343 siege of the Café, where citizens who don’t believe in the bubonic plague are portrayed as coronavirus deniers with social media followers. (“For more good tips, follow me!” he brags after suggesting he bathe in his own urine; when asked where he’s following him, he explains, “On foot!”) Little bits of this go a long way, especially when Bandit himself is relatively monotone. Related There are some funny gags here and there, and guest actors like Waititi’s director Con O’Neill are well-used. Our flag means death He appears as the Sheriff of Nottingham. However, until the seventh episode
The show seems to derive its appeal primarily from putting Saffron at the forefront, whose irreverence for history is a stronger comic engine than Kevin’s love of history, which does yield some funny moments here and there (instead of Agamemnon, Kevin’s father figure is the West African ruler Mansa Musa).
trend Like most of Apple’s series, the money is on the screen. The special effects are stunning, as are the historical reenactments and fantasy settings like Evil’s Fortress of Darkness. The episodes after Saffron joins the group, and after Penelope and the others have once and for all accepted that the kids are now one of them, are more lively, funny and coherent than those in the first half of the season. I can imagine my younger self marveling at the images and being amused as Saffron rides a mastodon and roars, “You don’t know my pronouns!” But this is a lesser work from the creators, and while it has the broad comedic shape of their better-known works, it’s not as distinctive, funny or memorable or emotional. It seems unlikely to make the same impression on its target audience. The first two episodes
