Taking Lewis Carroll's poem as an inspiration, Terry Gilliam's first non-Monty Python film sets the ground for his future films. The hero, Dennis Cooper (Monty Python alum Michael Palin), has dreams of marrying the shrewish Griselda. His plans go awry when his father disinherits him; Dennis is forced to find a place for himself in the capitol city where King Bruno the Questionable reigns. Through a series of mishaps and dumb luck, Dennis finds himself questing with a knight named Red Herring to slay the monster that terrorizes the kingdom.
Like his later films, there are outlandish outfits, capricious killings for petty causes, crumbling edifices, claustrophobic settings, bizarre customs, counterproductive commands from leadership, almost universal incompetence, and a hero who is mostly out of his depth. Though he is the hero, Dennis is hard to like. His infatuation for Griselda is pathetic rather than comical. That he is so clueless to the fact that she has no interest in him is sad rather than funny. The merchant class are portrayed as villains who want the Jabberwock to continue its rampages since the price for their goods is inflated and they have grown immensely wealthy. In search of a champion, King Bruno holds a joust - to the death! - in which the last survivor will set out to slay the beast. Why not send a host of knights?
Though it feels like a Terry Gilliam film (e.g., Brazil, Time Bandits, 12 Monkeys), it is missing a likeable character to follow. There is plenty of crazy, but very little charming. Dennis Cooper is an oaf who fails his way into a princess bride and half a kingdom, and the result is bland and disappointing, whereas competent and likeable Sam Lowry fumbles into a dystopian bureaucracy that lobotomizes him, and it is brilliant!
Watch Brazil instead, which also has Michael Palin in a much better role.
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