Time Bandits is a 1981 British fantasy adventure film co-written, produced, and directed by Terry Gilliam. It stars David Rappaport, Sean Connery, John Cleese, Shelley Duvall, Ralph Richardson, Katherine Helmond, Ian Holm, Michael Palin, Peter Vaughan, and David Warner. The film tells the story of a young boy taken on an adventure through time with a band of thieves who plunder treasure from various points in history.
In 1979, Terry Gilliam was unable to set up the film Brazil; therefore, he proposed a family film. Time Bandits was co-written with fellow Monty Python Michael Palin, financed by ex-Beatle George Harrison's HandMade Films and filmed in England, Morocco, and Wales. The film was released in cinemas on 2 July 1981 in the United Kingdom and on 6 November 1981 in the United States. On its initial release, the film received mainly positive reviews from critics; it opened at number one at the weekend box office in the US and Canada, and, by the end of its run, grossed $36 million on a budget of $5 million.
Gilliam has referred to Time Bandits as the first in his "Trilogy of Imagination", which follows a fantasist through three perspectives: as a young boy in this film, a grown man in Brazil (1985) and an old man in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988).
Plot Young Kevin is fascinated by history, particularly Ancient Greece, while his parents are obsessed only with modern consumerism and buying the latest household gadgets. One night, Kevin sees an armoured knight on horseback burst out of his wardrobe, then ride off into a forest where his bedroom wall was. The room returns to normal, leaving a photo on the wall similar to the forest he saw; the next night he prepares supplies and a Polaroid camera ready for a repeat viewing, but instead six dwarfs - Fidgit, Strutter, Og, Wally, Vermin and their leader, Randall - spill out of the wardrobe. The group have stolen a map and are looking for an exit from Kevin's room before they are discovered. After they reveal a long corridor leading to a portal, Kevin hesitates to join them until the apparition of a floating, menacing head—the Supreme Being—appears, demanding the map's return.
Kevin follows the group through the portal and lands with them in Italy during the Battle of Castiglione. Kevin learns that the Supreme Being once employed the dwarfs to repair holes in the spacetime fabric, but they realised the potential to use the map of the holes to steal riches from different time periods. With Kevin's help, they visit several locations in spacetime and meet Napoleon Bonaparte and Robin Hood, while Kevin uses his camera to document their visits. However, they are unaware that their activities are being monitored by Evil, a malevolent being who can manipulate reality and is attempting to acquire the map.
Kevin becomes separated from the group and ends up in Mycenaean Greece, meeting King Agamemnon, who adopts Kevin after he inadvertently helps the king kill a Minotaur. Randall and the others soon locate Kevin and abduct him, much to his resentment, and escape through another hole to the RMS Titanic, which begins sinking. Evil manipulates the group and transports them to his realm, the Time of Legends. After surviving encounters with ogres and a giant, Kevin and the dwarfs locate the Fortress of Ultimate Darkness and are led to believe that "The Most Fabulous Object in the World" awaits them. Instead, Evil takes the map and locks the group in a cage over a bottomless pit. While looking through his Polaroids, Kevin finds one that includes the map, and the group realises that there is a hole near them. They escape from the cage, and Kevin distracts their pursuers while the others go through the hole.
Evil confronts Kevin when the dwarfs return with various warriors and fighting machines from across time, but Evil effortlessly and comically defeats them all. As Evil prepares to unleash his ultimate power, he is suddenly engulfed in flames and explodes into pieces of foul, charred rubble; from the smoke, a besuited elderly man, revealed as the Supreme Being, emerges. He explains that he allowed the dwarfs to borrow his map, the whole adventure having been a test, and orders the dwarfs to collect the pieces of Evil's remains, warning that they can be deadly. After recovering the map, he allows the dwarfs to rejoin him in his creation duties, and disappears with the dwarfs, leaving Kevin behind as a missed piece of Evil begins to smoulder. Kevin awakens in his bedroom and is rescued by firefighters - the chief of which resembles Agamemnon - as they put out a fire in his house. As Kevin finds he still has the photos from his adventure, his parents discover a smouldering rock in the toaster oven - recognising it as a piece of Evil, Kevin warns them not to touch it, but they ignore him, do so, and explode, leaving only their shoes. As the chief firefighter winks at the boy before leaving, Kevin approaches the smoking shoes and is seen from above as his figure grows smaller, revealing the planet and outer space, before being rolled up in the map by the Supreme Being.
Cast
Production Development In November 1979, Terry Gilliam developed the concept for Time Bandits after he had started work on Brazil. Monty Python manager and producer Denis O'Brien had difficulty understanding the concept of Brazil, so Gilliam decided on the idea of a family film. O'Brien had set up HandMade Films in London for the former Beatle George Harrison to produce Life of Brian and the initiative was to produce more films with Python talent. When Gilliam's pitch was accepted he co-wrote the script with fellow Python Michael Palin.
Casting Sean Connery was cast as Agamemnon after he met producer O'Brien on a golf course. A reference in the script introduced the character with the joke description: "Removing his helmet reveals himself to be none other than Sean Connery or an actor of equal but cheaper stature". Connery was a Python fan and agreed to do the role for a nominal fee in return for a share of the gross profits.
The part of Robin Hood was originally written for Palin but John Cleese was eventually cast as his name was considered more bankable. Palin decided to appear with Shelley Duvall in the small recurring roles of Vincent and Pansy. Cleese based his performance on the Duke of Kent by watching him having meaningless conversations with footballers at the FA Cup Final during the team line-up before the match. Cleese remarked: "It always struck me as the most extraordinary ritual, the complete futility of that walking up and down thing".
Ralph Richardson's casting as the Supreme Being was because he was regarded "pretty much near God in the acting profession". Richardson took his role seriously, marking out his lines in red ink and occasionally saying, "God wouldn't say that".
Ruth Gordon and Gilda Radner were considered for the role of Mrs Ogre. Palin felt Gordon was the best choice but she had to drop out after sustaining an injury shooting Any Which Way You Can. The studio wanted Radner considering her bankable, but Gilliam campaigned for Katherine Helmond due to the popularity of the TV comedy Soap.
Jonathan Pryce was offered the role of Evil but opted for another film (Loophole) for a higher fee as "he was broke" at the time.
Filming Filming was partly on location with Raglan Castle standing in for Castiglione delle Stiviere, Epping Forest as Sherwood Forest and Aït Benhaddou as Agamemnon's palace in Mycenae. Interior scenes were filmed at Lee International Film Studios. Gilliam said he wanted to film from a "kid's point of view" and therefore shot from a low camera angle. He also said, "fearing a child wouldn't sustain the film ... let's surround him with people of a similar height".
During post-production, Gilliam had argued about changing the story's downbeat ending with O'Brien, who was also pressuring him to include some of Harrison's songs. Harrison eventually wrote and performed the closing credits song "Dream Away". The lyrics contained Harrison's comments on Time Bandits and on Gilliam's behaviour during the making of the film.
Japanese release The theatrical release in Japan was 1983. At cinemas outside of major metropolitan areas, preview screenings were shown as a double feature alongside the domestic production Harmagedon.角川春樹『試写室の椅子』（角川書店、1985年）p.269映画 バンデットQ (1981)について allcinema映画データベース Therefore, for commercial reasons on the part of the distributor who wanted to sell it as a children's programme, editing was carried out in a manner unique to Japan that "neglected the true intent of the work." Part of the scene of Robin Hood and the cannibal couple, and the last scene where the parents disappear were cut, resulting in a running time of approximately 103 minutes, approximately 13 minutes shorter than the original.バンデットQ - 作品情報 KINENOTE（キネマ旬報映画データベース）
The last scene was used uncut when it was aired on TV ("Sunday Western Movie Theater" broadcast on 10 January 1988). Each videogram version (LD, DVD, Blu-ray) released in Japan is the original full-length version.
Reception Box office The film was released in the US on 6 November 1981 and opened at number one at the box office for the weekend, grossing $6,507,356 from 821 theatres. The film remained number one for 4 weeks and grossed $36 million in the United States and Canada on a budget of $5 million (£2.2 million), and was the 13th highest-grossing film of the year in North America.Walker, Alexander (2005). Icons in the Fire: The Rise and Fall of Practically Everyone in the British Film Industry 1984–2000. Orion Books. p. 12.
The film was re-released in the US on 12 November 1982 and grossed a further $6 million to take its gross to $42.4 million in the United States and Canada.
Critical response On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 91% rating based on 54 reviews, with an average rating of 7.9/10. The consensus states: "Time Bandits is a remarkable time-travel fantasy from Terry Gilliam, who utilises fantastic set design and homemade special effects to create a vivid, original universe". On Metacritic, it received a weighted average rating of 79 out of 100 based on 18 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
The film had mainly positive reviews. Gary Arnold of The Washington Post said it was "a marvellous cinematic tonic, a sumptuous new classic in the tradition of time-travel and fairy-tale adventure". David Ansen of Newsweek considered it "at once sophisticated and childlike in its magical but emotionally cool logic ... a wonderful wild card in the fall movie season". Vincent Canby of The New York Times said it was "a cheerfully irreverent lark – part fairy tale, part science fiction and part comedy".