The Time Bandits don’t play

1981
Adventure / Comedy

A young boy accidentally joins a band of dwarves as they jump from era to era looking for treasure to steal.

In Terry Gilliam’s fantastic voyage through time and space, a boy escapes from his gadget-obsessed parents to join a band of time-traveling dwarves. On their journey, they visit Napoleon (Ian Holm), Robin Hood (John Cleese) and King Agamemnon (Sean Connery), among other popular figures. It’s a giddy, visually outrageous fairy tale, a revisionist history lesson and a satire on technology gone awry — all wrapped into one adventure.

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.

PLOT

Eleven-year-old Kevin has a vivid imagination and is fascinated by history, particularly of Ancient Greece; his parents ignore his activities, having become more obsessed with buying the latest household gadgets to keep up with their neighbours. One night, as Kevin is sleeping, an armoured knight on a horse bursts forth from his wardrobe. Kevin is scared and hides as the knight rides off into a forest setting where once his bedroom wall was; when Kevin looks back out, the room is back to normal, and he finds one of his photos on the wall similar to the forest he saw. He prepares a satchel with supplies and Polaroid camera for the next night. He is surprised when six dwarves spill out of the wardrobe. Kevin quickly learns the group has stolen a large, worn map, and are looking for an exit in Kevin’s room before they are discovered. They find that Kevin’s bedroom wall can be pushed, revealing a long hallway. Kevin is hesitant to join until the visage of a menacing head – the Supreme Being – appears behind them, demanding the return of the map. Kevin and the dwarves fall into an empty void at the end of the hallway.

They land in Italy during the Napoleonic Wars. As they recover, Kevin learns that Randall is the lead dwarf, along with Fidgit, Strutter, Og, Wally, and Vermin. They were once employed by the Supreme Being to repair holes in the spacetime fabric, but instead realized the potential to use the map to steal riches. With the map and Kevin’s help, they visit several locations in spacetime, and meet figures such as Napoleon Bonaparte (Holm) and Robin Hood (Cleese); Kevin uses his camera to document their visits. They are unaware that their activities are being monitored by Evil, a malevolent sorcerer, who is able to manipulate reality and is attempting to acquire the map himself.

Through Evil’s actions, Kevin becomes separated from the group and ends up in Mycenaean Greece, and meets King Agamemnon (Connery); after Kevin inadvertently helps Agamemnon kill a minotaur, the king treats him as his own son, something that Kevin would be content with. Randall and the others soon locate Kevin and abduct him, much to his resentment. They arrive on the ill-fated RMS Titanic; on which Randall reveals to Kevin his plan. The “big one”. He reveals that after looking at the map the night before, he found that “The Most Fabulous Object in the World” does exist! In the Time of Legends, is the Fortress of Ultimate Darkness, which holds…”The Most Fabulous Object in the World”. The ship sinks, and they are forced to tread water while they argue among each other. Evil manipulates the group with a whirlpool and transports them to his realm, the Time of Legends. They spot a great ‘pirate looking’ ship which dwells Winston the Ogre and his wife, Mrs. Ogre. The Ogres pull in their fish net which holds all of the Dwarves and Kevin. They trick the Ogre into getting his back fixed by them and instead he is tossed into the water, along with his wife soon after. As the ship moves suddenly back and forth, it is revealed that the ship is actually the hat of a huge giant that emerges from the water, destroying everything in his path. Meanwhile, up upon the giant’s head, Kevin and the Dwarves get the idea of filling the Ogre’s fireplace bellows with sedatives they had found there, and jam it right into the top of the giant’s head- making him need a rest. He sits down , takes off his hat, puts it on the ground, and falls asleep. They move on, coming across a glass shield they can not get through- but after fighting with Randall, he throws a nearby skull at them, which breaks the glass to reveal the evil realm. The dwarves locate the Fortress of Ultimate Darkness, and are led to believe that “The Most Fabulous Object in the World” awaits them, luring them into Evil’s trap. Evil takes the map and locks the group in a cage over an apparent bottomless pit. While looking through the Polaroids he took, Kevin finds one that includes the map, and the group realizes there are numerous holes in the Fortress they can use to recruit help to fight Evil. They make quick work of escaping from the cage and set their plan into motion.

Though they far outnumber Evil, Evil’s powers quickly defeat all of the allied forces, because the conventional weapons and methods of war they use were all under the control of Evil in the first place. As Kevin and the dwarves cower, Evil prepares to unleash his ultimate power. Suddenly, he is turned into stone and explodes; from the smoke, an elderly, well-dressed figure emerges, revealed as the true form of the Supreme Being. He orders the dwarves to collect all the pieces of concentrated evil, warning that they can be deadly if not contained, recovers the map, and allows the dwarves to rejoin him in his creation duties. The Supreme Being disappears with the dwarves, leaving Kevin stranded behind as a missed piece of concentrated Evil begins to smoulder.

Kevin passes out and awakes in his bedroom to find it filled with smoke. Firefighters break down the door and rescue him as they put out a fire in his house. One of the firemen finds that his parents’ new microwave caused the fire. As Kevin recovers, he finds one of the firemen resembles Agamemnon, and discovers that he still has the photos from his adventure. Kevin’s parents discover a smouldering rock in the toaster oven. Recognising it as a piece of Evil, Kevin warns them not to touch it. Ignoring him, they touch it, then explode, leaving two piles of ash. Kevin looks up and is seen from above, and as his figure grows smaller, the skies and the outer space appears, and suddenly all of it is coiled over the map by the Supreme Being.

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