Film

Jabberwocky (1977)

Director: Terry Gilliam

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Honestly, the things people do to make you laugh in this Python-esque medieval epic. They hire a cast of British notables, ranging from Max Wall to Christopher Logue. They seek out some of Britain's nicest ancient monuments. They create a monster with enough horrible features to stock two series of Dr Who. They pile on the atmosphere with mist, candles, crowds, dust and blood. They construct a complicated plot and then only give you glimpses of it, as in the foreign films. Oh yes, they write gags too: some are good (jousting knights with daft things like bananas and fish on their helmets), some are bad, and some ugly. Max Wall's fruity enunciation boosts almost all his lines, and Michael Palin makes a pleasingly gormless hero. But nice bits here and there don't amount to a good movie: like the portmanteau words in Lewis Carroll's poem, there's just far too much packed together for anything to make proper sense.

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