MUBI

Like all of Terry Gilliam’s fantasy films, this children’s tale about a lonely boy who tags along as six little people jump across time and space stealing treasure from famous historical figures, is hit or miss; imagination to spare, though borderline uninteresting and awkward.

With a tremendous debt to “The Wizard of Oz”, Gilliam’s adventure finds a young boy literally escaping a poor, lonely childhood into fantasy, though where Dorothy found Oz on the other side of a twister, our Kevin finds his six little friends in his closet, running away from their employer – God. Soon they’re jumping through black time portals, back to the time of Napoleon (Ian Holm, perfectly cast), ripping off his loot, and then even further back, to Greece in the time of Agamemnon (Sean Connery), or to the wacky forests of Robin Hood (John Cleese, hamming it up), before an evil wizard hatches onto their plot and steers them his way.

The effects, primitive as they are for an independent film of the early 80’s, blend nicely with the models and makeup of this fantasy world, but there’s little importance to the story, and as a whole, it’s not nearly as funny or satirical as Gilliam, Cleese and Michael Palin’s best Monty Python work. Though don’t take it from me, this was a big hit, and remains a cult classic.