Sometimes, you just wish you could get whisked away into the past. But Kevin didn’t expect that to actually happen.
One moment, Kevin’s lying in his bed. The next, a group of six dwarves bursts out of his wardrobe (Narnia style) and pushes the wall of his bedroom away, revealing a black abyss.
Apparently, Kevin’s room contains one of the many holes in the fabric of spacetime that allow the dwarves—who call themselves “time bandits”—to jump through history and steal whatever loot they can find. They’ve got a map showing them where each one of these holes is—a map they stole from the “Supreme Being,” a giant floating head who most would identify as God.
Well, it’s not long before this Supreme Being bursts into the room, chasing after them and warning them to return the map. Kevin, bewildered, runs away with the dwarves, falling into the black abyss and straight into Napoleon’s Battle of Castiglione in 1796.
But the Supreme Being isn’t the only one who’s got an interest in capturing the dwarves (and now Kevin). Another spiritual being, who calls himself the Evil One, watches the dwarves with great interest through his scrying pool. He’s been stuck in his prison for a long time … but with that map, he just might be able to find a way out.
Kevin calls out the dwarves for using the map for selfish purposes. He claims that they should use the power of the map to do good things rather than waste it by robbing people.
Kevin is treated well by many kind strangers who hope to help the time-traveling boy. People die to protect others.
In Time Bandits, the Supreme Being is God, and the dwarves reveal that they once worked for him. They also explain the reason for all the holes in spacetime: God’s creation was a botched job due to its seven-day timeframe. They also reference the Supreme Being making “good and evil, men and women, night and day,” while they helped out with some of the trees and shrubs. The dwarves were sent to God’s Repair Department to patch up the holes, but they chose to take the map and run away with it instead.
Later, God appears as a human. He brings someone back to life, and He tell the dwarves to not “think I’ve lost control again and put it all down to evolution.” Kevin questions why God would let people die “to test [His] creation,” and why evil exists, prompting God to briefly touch on free will.
The Evil One says he existed before good did, and he claims to be all-powerful. He’d like to use the map (combined with his knowledge of computers and technology) to take control, arguing that they’re in the “hands of a lunatic,” i.e. God. He uses a scrying pool, and he mind controls a dwarf.
A Greek man wonders if Kevin was sent by the Greek gods when he appears.
Tight pants form fit around a man’s genitals. A running noodle incident takes place, referencing a vaguely sexual-sounding issue. We hear other sexual crudities, too. Men dress like women for a skit. A man is shirtless.
Knights are impaled in a sculpture-like way with lances. Some soldiers die when they’re struck by arrows, and a trio is thrown over a wall to their presumed deaths. Someone gets crushed by a pillar. Two humans explode after touching an evil rock. Another person gets shot and dies. A firing squad executes a group of men.
Someone gets turned to stone, and a number of creatures explode. A man and woman are punched in the face by another man. A character’s arm gets ripped off in arm wrestling, though there’s no blood (and a basket near the table shows a number of other arms). Another person contemplates suicide, putting a gun to his head and a noose around his neck. A man burns, jumping into water to put it out. In a fictional gameshow, a man is drowned in custard.
A giant steps on a couple people. An ogre threatens to eat people. A man cuts the head off of a minotaur. We also see the beast sustain a couple bloody cuts.
Someone eats a live rat. We also see skeletons. The Titanic sinks. In a puppet show, the male puppet beats his wife. An army carries wounded soldiers on stretchers.
“D–n” and “bloody” are used four times each, and “h—” is used three times. God’s name is used in vain twice. Someone is called a “scumbag.”
People smoke cigars and drink alcohol. One man drinks so much alcohol that he falls unconscious.
None.
Time Bandits takes audiences back in time to witness a height-obsessed Napoleon Bonaparte, a minotaur-slaying King Agamemnon and even the sinking of the Titanic.
But the initial release of Time Bandits in 1981 puts it far enough backwards in time now that the dwarves might now have reason to visit that era, too.
Director Terry Gilliam’s (Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Life of Brian) film has jumped back into relevance, however, with the release of an Apple TV+ television reboot of the movie (Gilliam is uninvolved), giving us cause to return to see if Time Bandits stands the test of, er, time.
The spiritual themes in Time Bandits come as little surprise, as other Gilliam efforts show little reverence for God. And violence, while not often bloody, would still test the limits of a modern-day PG film (the PG-13 rating wouldn’t be introduced until 1984)—though in that regard, it’s certainly no Red Dawn or Temple of Doom.
Time Bandits, like many a Python-esque film, dabbles in the absurd. It pairs memorable one-liners and ridiculous skits. But like many a classic, parents will want to revisit the film to discern whether it remains as child friendly as their fond memories of it might claim.
Kennedy Unthank studied journalism at the University of Missouri. He knew he wanted to write for a living when he won a contest for “best fantasy story” while in the 4th grade. What he didn’t know at the time, however, was that he was the only person to submit a story. Regardless, the seed was planted. Kennedy collects and plays board games in his free time, and he loves to talk about biblical apologetics. He thinks the ending of Lost “wasn’t that bad.”
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