Forward march to greatness!
Baron Munchausen is a local legend in a very small village that is barely hanging on. Why barely hanging on? Outside of the gates lies the great Turkish army that wishes to get in and take over. Inside of the gates, however, is a very irresponsible leader named Horatio Jackson. Greedy, stubborn and just overall mean, Jackson doesn’t let anyone out of the gates and refuses to call for backup or help the people in the village from the Turks. The village has only one outlet, that’s reliving the great tale of Baron Munchausen, a leader who had many great adventures. Of course, the actors onstage have a horrible time portraying the great Baron accurately, so much so that the Baron himself shows up one night and completely denounces the performance. When he reveals himself the villagers rejoice and beg the great Baron to save them from the Turks and he does so accordingly. First though, he must put together his great team of adventures which include a sharpshooter, a blow-hard (literally), a strong man and the fastest man in the world. The problem? He has no idea where his old friends have ended up. The solution? He goes exploring the far reaches of the world (and the moon) to find these fellows, so that the Turkish army can finally be wiped out. Not an easy task, especially when you’ve got a 10 year-old stowaway named Sally Salt.
Have you seen Brazil? 12 Monkeys? The Adventures of Baron Munchausen are in the same light as these other Gilliam films. Strange, humorous and very intelligent. This one is very exciting from beginning to end, it has that strange feel about it where you can’t help but liking what Gilliam and crew (actors and actual crew) have put together. What’s even better about this film, that stands out the most, is that the story itself is extremely clever and nearly original. When the story let’s loose ends hang, it ties them up later. Great stories create great problems that end in great solutions. It’s how you can tell a good movie from a bad one. Gilliam has always had this effect on his stories and movies (we won’t mention Brothers Grimm). For example, you’ve got the King of the Moon, played by Robin Williams (beautiful performance, I couldn’t imagine Sean Connery in this role), who is a flying head that hates his womanizing body. He writes completely two different characters out of one character performance. When the head finally is caught by the body, the character switches to the womanizer. The head is always struggling to separate itself from the evil body and finally does. It’s a unique problem, that is completely entertaining, but at the same time very scary. It’s got a funny solution, which makes it great. You never expect the solution you get, but when you see it you say to yourself, “That makes sense!” That’s the type of storytelling you have in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen.
So the other part of the film that makes it work beautifully is the effort given by all the actors and actresses. I’ll explain a bit more about why this is amazing, outside of their actual performances, but just know that it is. Eric Idle, Robin Williams, Uma Thurman (yep, you heard that right), John Neville and even Sarah Polley worked their butts off to provide an individual, unique performance that makes their characters standout. When you can give 110% in your role, the characters are bound to memorable. In 1988, when this film was released, I remember a critic on TV praising the performances of these actors and actresses and it really shows why. Gilliam has always written great parts for people, even though they’re small at times. Robin Williams is only on the screen for about three minutes, and you won’t forget how he was in the movie. From small to large roles, they all stand out.
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