Time Bandits

1 9 8 1 (UK)

In Terry Gilliam's fantastic voyage through time and space, a boy named Kevin escapes from his gadget-obsessed parents to join a band of time-travelling dwarves called Randall, Fidgit, Strutter, Og, Wally and Vermin.

With a map stolen from the Supreme Being (Ralph Richardson) which shows holes in the universe (it turns out The Creation was something of a botched job!), they delight in plundering treasure from Napoleon and Agamemnon (Sean Connery) by using the holes as doorways into different time zones - They also bump  into John Cleese's Robin Hood (hang on, isn't he a fictional character) but the Evil Genius (David Warner) is watching every move . . .

Kevin and his companions spend time on the Titanic right before it goes down, and in the Time of Legends, where an Ogre couple prepares them for a fondue. One robber is turned into a pig, and the lot of them find themselves suspended over a timeless limbo void in a metal cage. But worst of all, the gang finds itself at Evil's very own Fortress of Ultimate Darkness, where only a little help from the Supreme Being himself can turn the tide.

With a darkly playful script by Gilliam and Michael Palin, Time Bandits is a giddy fairy tale, a revisionist history lesson, and a satire on technology gone awry.

Much of the film was shot with the camera a couple of feet off the ground or looking up from holes, so as to create the perspective of a child.

With music and a closing song by former ex-Beatle George Harrison, the movie had enough crowd-pleasing adventure to turn a tidy profit at the box office. It remains an offbeat favourite of those who like a good potpourri of fantasy, sci-fi and comedy in their time-travel adventure movies.

TRIVIA NOTE
The dwarf called Fidgit was played by Kenny Baker - more widely known for his work as R2D2 in a certain space movie . . .