Cinema: Help!

TIME BANDITS

Directed by Terry Gilliam Written by Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam

Monty Python Strikes Back at Star Wars. Crash of the Titans. Malice in Blunderland. The Gizzard of Odd. Is this what Gilliam and Palin had in mind? A nasty fantasy, an antiepic, a revisionist fable? Seems so: surely the pair of Pythonians who concocted this ragged film knew what they were about. If the scenario dismisses good ideas and stretches bad ones, if the comic timing in some sequences seems laboriously off, if the film manages to alienate the audience that might have been attracted to it—well, Gilliam...