Cheap The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (DVD) (John Neville, Eric Idle) (Terry Gilliam) Price

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Customer Reviews of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen

Is there a doctor in the fish?
Without a doubt in my mind and not having to take a long time to think about it this has to be my all time favourite movie. John Neville does a brilliant job portraying the imfamous liar Baron Munchausen. With a great cast that includes Eric Idle, Sarah Polley and Jonathan Pryce (to name a few) Baron Munchausen returns on the eve of battle with the Turks claiming that he started it. With the help of a young girl played by Sarah Polly, Baron Munchausen sets out to find his old servants. This movie is a wonderful piece of fantasy that makes me feel like a child again, making us believe that we can sail to the moon, giant see monsters and defying death. It also has some of the best acting and wittiest dialogue. A movie that avoids all the Hollywood cliche's of what a film should be like and is just plain fun to watch.

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High, loony adventure creates a profound vision
Terry Gilliam, perhaps most widely known for the unusual fantasy films "Time Bandits", "Brazil" and "Jabberwocky", and more recently for the slightly off-kilter dramas "The Fisher King", "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and "12 Monkeys", presents here what is arguably his most fantastic work: the story of Baron von Munchausen, a European gentleman as known for his outrageous adventures as he was for his propensity to bend the truth. Though strangely not as well received as most of the other films listed above, "Munchausen" is unquestionably Gilliam's finest work. The outrageous series of adventures undertaken by the Baron (Eric Neville) on his quest to save a small town from destruction at the hand of the Turks is told with sweeping, elegant detail, unforgettable images and a sly, sardonic sense of humor that pokes at much fun at its characters as it does at the Enlightenment era, which the film seems aimed at pulling apart. There's always a bit more to Gilliam's films than meets the eye. In "Time Bandits", it was an underlying satire on the consumer products we as a modern society hold in such high esteem; in "12 Monkeys", it was a bizarre examination of the frailty of the human mind; in "Munchausen", Gilliam and co-writer Charles McKeown seem intent on defending the need to believe in the fantastic by assaulting the overly rational notions of the Enlightenment era, represented here in the singular entity of Jonathan Pryce (Tomorrow Never Dies, Stigmata) as the leader of the besieged town. Gilliam's narrative in the film, also, requires a bit of examination, as time and place constantly shift and warp, and we're never entirely sure if what we're watching is a part of what's "really" happening...but then that's the point, it seems, because it's a movie, and none of it's really happening. While Gilliam's "point", such as it may be, is quite simple (and similar to that in many of his other films, whereupon the central antagonist is always willing to believe in something outside of what's readily apparent in the "normal" world), the text in which he presents it is exceptionally complex, and may require many viewings before the viewer can form their own opinion on his subject matter. In all aspects of its production, "Munchausen" is grand and impressive. Sweeping battle sequences, intentionally outrageous special effects, and grand cinematography make this a motion picture worth savoring. As Baron Munchausen travels to the Moon, Mars and into the belly of a great fish in search of his comrades at arms (among them Eric Idle, Jack Purvis and Charles McKeown), we are presented with one glorious image after another. Neville, as the Baron, is fabulous, displaying just the right blend of humor and world-wariness: though his character is outrageous, he regards all of the fantastic surroundings and characters he meets with a believeable familarity. Sarah Polley (all grown up now, and last seen in Go) is wonderful as Sally, the daughter of the local theatre troop leader, and a willing side-kick on Munchausen's adventures. Eric Idle is wonderfully comic as Berthold, the fastest man in the world (not to mention the dimmest), and Jonathan Pryce casts his normal sinister persona with a delicious foppishness that makes us laugh at him as much as we hate him. Among the numerous cameos, several stand out in memory: Oliver Reed as the dim-witted, jealous Vulcan; Uma Thurman as his tantilizing wife, Aprhodite; and Robin Williams in an uncredited cameo as the King of the Moon (embodying the figurate separation of mind and body in the most literal and amusing fashion). Combine all of these elements together, and you have a movie that brings the magic back into cinema: humorous, sweeping, adventurous, and thought-provoking. It is undoubtedly Terry Gilliam's finest achievement.

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The Baron Lives on
Anyone who can sit there and say thay never spun a tale or two in their lives has no imagination. The Baron is a man who has cheated life and death by being both hero and con man but still retaining a sense of "je ne sais quois" Robin Williams steals his cameo and plays it in his usual frantic way. Sarah Polly is wonderful as the child of innocence who looks up to the Baron and the rest of the cast is wonderful as well. Not a movie that should be missed especially by those who enjoy the mania that is Monty Python