10 Funniest Non-Monty Python Films From Monty Python Members
4. The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen
If someone were to corner you at a party and ask you what it means for a movie to have an "unmistakable Terry Gilliam" aesthetic, what would you tell them? (Besides "get away from me you strange, pretentious little man.")
Anyone looking for the quintessential Gilliam experience should start with The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. Told as four individual stories that messily overlap in all kinds of wonderful ways, the story of Baron Munchausen is part truth and part fairy tale, though the exact ratios thereof are nearly impossible to decipher thanks to Gilliam's wild, freewheeling scope.
Though the narrative doesn't completely hold up by the film's end, the people inside the stories are absolutely delightful through and through. It's a joy to experience each new story because you know that it's going to have a gaggle of hilarious new characters to behold. Characters played by Robin Williams, Uma Thurman, and Sting, no less.
Eric Idle gets the biggest workload when it comes to the wackier material, playing the Baron's right hand man.
The comedy isn't culled from disturbing situations or taboo subjects, either, and so they flow more easily and heartily. It's that absurdist humor Monty Python did so well, and it aims for the gut more than the brain.