Time Bandits 1981: Skipping through the Fractured Fabric of the Universe

Produced, and directed by:  Terry Gilliam. 
Co-written by: Michael Palin,Terry Gilliam.
Funded by: George Harrison
Starring:  Sean Connery, John Cleese, Shelley Duvall, Ralph Richardson, Katherine Helmond, Ian Holm, Michael Palin, Peter Vaughan and David Warner. 
Features: Lego castle, another wardrobe portal, interrupted courting.
This movie is for: Whole family.
This movie is not suitable for: Evil, history purists, people who require a solid ending.

Boy, I had no idea this little film had such a remarkable casting and crew! However, these names are not here just for fame’s sake, but they clearly seem to share a sense of humor and creativity that makes them work together splendidly, and that shines through in the final product. This movie radiates cheeky fun on all levels!

Plot Summary

This plot is so full of stuff that I will try to be brief.

Kevin is a young history enthusiast who lives with his suitably oppressing parents in seemingly ordinary suburban house – where doors block all sounds into a room but not out, family dinner is seemingly nothing on a tin tray, and the dimensions of the interior change abruptly.

At sleep-time, a knight on horseback breaks out of his closet and gallops away across the field that stretches through the walls. The occuranse seemed so real that Kevin tries to catch it the following night with a polaroid camera, but instead, he gets a bunch of dwarves beating him up in his bed. The ordeal is interrupted by the Suppreme Being chasing the dwarves through the back of Kevin’s room, and Kevin thinks it best to run away with them.

The dwarves and Kevin end up in France during the  Battle of Castiglione. The dwarves perform a sort of play for Napoleon’s entertainment, who loves them, because they are shorten than him. Napoleon invites them to feast and passes out after a lecture concerning the height of great people in history. The dwarves take all Napoleon’s treasure they can carry, and run through a portal to another time and dimension.

In the other dimension the dwarves explain to Kevin that they used to work for the Suppreme Being, and build the universe according to his plan, but it was a botch-job and thus the universe is full of holes. There is a map that points out all the holes in the universe, so that the dwarves could repair them, but instead of repairing them, the dwarves desided to steal the map, and use the holes to get rich instead. They do it by moving between dimensions, performing acts, and stealing treasure while they are at it.

In the meanwhile, in the Fortress of Ultimate Darkness, the villain who just calls himself Evil, has found out that the dwarves have the map, and desides that he wants it from them. Evil needs the map to learn technology and to take on the world. He blasts everyone who questions him into oblivion – talk about cancel culture. Now Evil uses mind control to send a thought to one of the dwarves, that they should raid the Fortress of Ultimate Darkness, because it possesses the most fabulous object in the World.

Then the suppreme being appears again to the dwarves, and demands for his map back. Kevin gets separated from the dwarves by stepping into the wrong portal, which takes him to mycanean times. He saves King  Agamemnon from a minotaur attack and after killing the minotaur, the King makes Kevin his son and heir. The queen seems very displeased about everything around her, but never says a word. She can, however, feel soon happy again because the dwarves raid their feast and steal Kevin away with them.

After a quik tour on RMS Titanic, the dwarves and Kevin arrive to the time of Legends, where the Fortress of Ultimate Darkness is located. Evil snatches the map to himself and shuts the dwarves into a cage-dungeon, from where they escape due to some great teamwork and circus skills! The dwarves want to run away through a portal located nearby, but Kevin convinces them to save the world instead. They steal the map back from Evil, but get caught in the process, and Wendigos chase them through the Fortress. They deside to split up and Kevin distracts the Wendigos while letting the others escape to the portal.

Kevin gets confronted by Evil face to face, but then the dwarves return with backup from cowboys and knights and archers and a tank and some futuristic rocket-ship. Evil shows to be no joke after all, because he takes care of all of his opponents without difficulties. Then the Suppreme being arrives and turn Evil into coal.

The Suppreme Being tells the dwarves to throw all of the Evil lumps of coal into the bin, but they miss one bit under the tank. The dwarves are very sorry for stealing the Suppreme being’s map, but he says he let them do it, as the whole ordeal was part of his plan. The dwarves get their jobs back as builders of the universe, and leave the Fortress together with the Suppreme Being. Kevin is left behind, because – according to the Suppreme Being, he must continue the fight.

The evil lump of coal under the tank begins to smoke, and transfers Kevin back to his own bed in his suburban home. Kevin’s parents find the lump of Evil in their microwave, and despite kevin warning them to not touch it, they touch it right away and blast into oblivion.

The End

And I TRIED to keep this short!

Map of the holes in the universe

My review:

This movie plays with it’s level of depth and seriousness, and each viewer may decide how deep one wishes to go. On one level it can be taken for a comical adventure run-through entertainent flick, but it has a lot of elements that tease the viewer to think a little deeper.

The reality from which Kevin’s adventure starts from portrays an ordinary life – which is not in fact ordinary at all. The furniture is wrapped in plastic, likely to prevent it from wearing out, but this ofcourse makes it very uncomfortable to use. The TV portrays a quiz-show where the wrong answer leads to death. This reflected strongly to my personal point of view, for I see in my own current world a lot of things that are in fact not normal – yet concidered normal in this particular world and time.

The movie also made me wonder about the nature of evil. Evil’s passion to learn technology was, because with technology he could shape reality to what he wants it to be, away from it’s natural state, to something else. Make lazers instead of dandelions. Make a man to his image. He claims that the world will be better, because he has the understanding of digital watches. In a sense, the Evil portrayed in this movie is like it is in Tolkien’s world – wanting to break the harmony and play his own tune – and the role of technology in this becomes very clear. I wonder how universal this is, among evils of the world.

On the other hand, the dwarves are seemingly greedy and use the power they possess to steal and get rich – to the point where they steal Kevin away from his happiness, - yet somehow they are not like forces of evil, but in the end reveal to be only tools to the Supreme being’s great plan.

The movie does not tell what the most fabulous object in the world is. This thing likely does not even exist, but Evil uses the allure of fame and glamour to lure the dwarves to his clutches. The dwarves seem to go after it, because everybody else wants it, no matter what it is.

These are only my personal observations, and I’d like to challenge other viewers of this movie to dig their minds into their watch-time, and find more peculiar plot philosophies.

This movie shines with it’s special effects, that proves once again the practical’s reign over digital.

Take that, evil technocrats!